xli. Her, Him, & Them

“I've sent something to keep you while you’re there.”

Was the text message Sungyeol received from Jaehyo at approximately eight o’clock in the morning. A layer of fog greeted him as he stepped out of the small abode he had lodged in for the past three days, slipping on a grey cardigan as he went. The old man who bid him “Arrivederci, Yeol” from inside, a newspaper in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, went by the name of Giuseppe Moretti. 

He had a head full of pepper colored hair despite his age, a round belly, and a face full of happy wrinkles. The latter of which Sungyeol figured was caused by his unceasing smile, wide and stained a hue of yellow. Sungyeol called him, “Gyu” affectionately — whilst fondly imagining the appearance of the person he left back in Springfield.

The two had met in London, early January. 

Giuseppe was seated next to him on the subway, a notebook on his lap that he scribbled incessantly into. Sungyeol was listening to Toro Y Moi, headphones securely plugged into his ears, blocking out the mumblings of his fellow commuters. His eyes were scanning this way and that, not focusing on anything in particular. That is, until he glanced at the words the older man was writing. In black scrawl was written thus:

Hello. Ciao. Good Morning! Buongiorno! I’m lost. Mi sono perso. How much is this? Quanto costa questo? Excuse me! Mi scusi! What’s your name? Quale è il suo nome? My name is Giuseppe Moretti. Mi chiamo Guiseppe Moretti. Nice to meet you. è un piacere conoscerla!

Sungyeol recognized it as a list of translations of common English phrases into Italian in an instant. He proceeded to watch his native tongue in fascination, not having seen it in so long he found himself staring at it for a long while. And then, he began to wonder. 

What did Italian sound like?

It had been so long, too long, and he couldn’t help himself. As he caught Giuseppe’s lips moving noiselessly, he lowered the volume of his music, and he listened to the intonations and the inflections of the man’s voice. 

Like the act of riding a bike after years of walking, it all came back to him in an instant. 

He began to mumble along with the older man’s recitations on reflex.

Suddenly, Giuseppe turned to him, eyes bright, smile wide, as he said, as he practically yelled, “Potrebbe auitarmi?”

Can you help me?

Sungyeol nodded his head, not sparing a single thought to what helping the man might result in, and said, “Sì.”

That was how the two met, and during Giuseppe’s three week stay in London, Sungyeol was his tour guide — the blind leading the blind. Still, the older man was grateful. So grateful, he offered to return the favor. He decided he’d help Sungyeol in turn.

He offered to house Sungyeol should he ever wish to visit Italy.

This offer is what originally planted in his mind the idea of finding his family; something he had never thought about before. Bitterness had something to do with that, along with the feeling of being “unwanted” that left him thinking he was better off without them. But he was older now. He was old enough to understand the importance of family, blood-related or not, abandonment issues or not.

The opportunity was too good to give up. The possibilities were too endless to ignore. The very prospect of it was too within his grasp to simply let go. Thus, Sungyeol said he would take him up on his offer, they exchanged addresses and phone numbers, and his current sleeping situation was one of the empty bedrooms Giuseppe would rent out to students during the Spring and the Fall. 

“Arrivederci, Yeol,” Giuseppe had said before he left London. 

“Arrivederci, Sungyeol,” was the last thing he expected to hear from her lips not even five days later — something he failed to foresee let alone entertain the idea of at this point in time. 

Presently, he made his way down the cobblestone streets, tall structures of orange, blue, yellow, and white lining either side of him. Vines of green and flowers of red hung from balconies above his head. His leather boots clicked down with each step, one set of footsteps echoing from one building to the next. One set that would soon become two. 

As soon as he walked through the door of the post office, a small bell chiming upon his entrance, he saw her. He froze immediately, time seeming to slow as she turned, facing him. Smiling. Walking towards him. 

Her suitcase rolled behind her, bright yellow. Her eyes blinked slowly, stained grey by his reflection. Her hands dug into her jacket pocket for a book, burning red. 

She flipped through it with a purpose, searching for something. 

And it didn’t take her long to find it.

“Ciao, Sungyeol,” she recited, cheeks lifting upwards, lips spreading outwards. 

His voice got stuck in his throat, and he felt like crying like a child. 

Sungyeol decided they’d return to Giuseppe’s first so that Hyunjoo could get settled in. The older man greeted them warmly at the door, exclaiming proudly to him how “Beautiful” she was, asking him “Is the young girl your fiancé?,” before pushing him with the question of: “Why not?”

Giuseppe married his wife when they were eighteen. His view on love was romanticized and extravagant. And it was simple. And Sungyeol only wished it was all that simple. 

On the way, he told her what he had come to Italy, more specifically to Venice, to do: to find out more about his family. She already knew that much, so he explained himself further. Half because he felt the obligation to compensate for making her come all this way, and half because he felt like he needed to tell someone other than Giuseppe — someone who knew much more about the situation regarding what he was — what he had learned so far. 

“I’ve tried going to a few places I remember; like the bakery I used to go with my parents to every Sunday afternoon or the local stationary store I had bought all my school supplies from every year. While the owners remembered me, they weren’t able to remember anything about my family or what happened to them after I was admitted to the hospital. So, I’ve decided to visit the milk store I used to deliver around the neighborhood for to see if my parents told them anything after that regarding what happened to me. Maybe what they thought about it? Maybe even where they were going? That’s why we’re here now,” he gestured to the small ferry the two had boarded not even ten minutes ago. 

Since he had neither a car nor a bike, he purchased two tickets for the Grand Canal in order to access the other part of the city he had once lived in, in an address he no longer remembered — another reason to visit the family who sold, as they used to boast, “so much milk it should be illegal.” He only hoped it wasn’t and that the store would still be there, where he remembered it, when they arrived. 

As for Hyunjoo’s own arrival, she had told him it was Jaehyo’s idea. Something about a plane ticket, an agreed upon meeting, and yo-yos. Since Sungyeol was still processing the fact that she was right there, right here in Venice with him, he wasn’t able to pay as close attention as he’d like to her explanation. Still, he got the gist of it and told her earlier, “I didn’t tell Jaehyo to follow after me.”

And she replied with a nod, “I know,” because she was much more clever than the others, at times, gave her credit for. 

Jaehyo had done him a favor, he knew that. Jaehyo had lied for Sungyeol’s own sake, he knew that. Jaehyo had given him an opportunity that was too good to miss, he was sure of that. 

An opportunity to spend a few more seconds, minutes, hours, maybe even days with Song Hyunjoo. Because he had no plans of returning to Springfield. Because he was sure he’d find his family and his pack. Because he was firm in his choice, he wasn’t going anywhere. 

Which now brought up a question Sungyeol figured he’d ask sooner rather than later, “Did you come to convince me to go back?”

She leaned forward on the railing of the ferry, watching the sights and the sounds go floating by, “I knew you had a reason for coming when I heard about your disappearance. And, if you want to find your former family, your previous pack, I think you should do it. If it’s what you want to do, I’m not going to stop you. If, no, when you do, I’m not going to hold you back from going with them. It’s what you’ve decided. It’s not my choice. It’s not my responsibility to change your mind.”

“Then,” he paused, knowing he could stop here and simply pretend it didn't matter, knowing he wouldn’t be able to, “why did you come?”

She turned, staring at him, contemplating her words, figuring she’d might as well say the reason she gave to Zico and Sunggyu, the reason that caused them to agree with her decision to go, sooner rather than later, “Well, I didn’t want a day I couldn’t even remember to be the last time I saw you.” 

She knew deep down that if she hadn’t come, so impulsively, so stubbornly, it would have been.

“Hyunjoo,” he said her name, reprimanding her for her hasty, last minute decision to fly more than ten hours just to see him. Yet, at the same time, he reveled in his current reality. They were there, together, alone. She hadn’t come to bring him back. She hadn’t brought Springfield to Italy. She had only brought herself. No one else and nothing else. No one else and nothing else seemed to matter but the smile she was giving him. He forgot the words he was going to say, meaningless words he wouldn’t attempt to remember in the future, in the face of that content smile. 

And he questioned her for it, unable to understand it, “What’s with the look?”

“I’m memorizing it,” she closed her eyes, breathing out, laughing to herself, leaving him left out of her inside joke until she continued with, “the sound of your voice when you call my name, I’m memorizing it.” 

When she opened her eyes, she was left shocked by what she saw. He was looking on at her, features contorted into an expression she had never seen from him before. And as a low mumbling of  “Why the hell not?” left him, his face became blurry, akin to mere shapes and lines she couldn’t tell apart from one another. 

Sungyeol boldly crossed that line he stalled in front of last Fall. He stole the last cookie from the cookie jar because, in his words, why the hell not? Why miss out on this chance? He wouldn’t. He refused to let it go. And he wouldn’t ruin it because of his own insecurities for the second time. 

He flushed against her, pressing her back against the metal railing of the ferry. The steel bar bit into her tailbone, causing a pained mewl to leave her lips. He swallowed the sound, engulfing her body, her lips, with unbounded heat. All the cliches and tropes of romance and the like seemed to come true: time seemed slower, the sound of the water that ebbed against the side of the ferry seemed so far away, and the floor underneath his feet seemed to fall away, leaving him floating there with her. Everything seemed. And for her, that was the problem. Everything merely seemed. She questioned herself if this was happening; if this were real. 

His bangs which tickled her forehead as his head shifted to the right, his blurred out features she watched with wide eyes, the will to move her lips against his own — was it all real?

It must have been, because here she was. 

Here she was, her eyes fluttering closed as she kissed Lee Sungyeol back. As she returned back the fervor and the urgency that he conveyed to her ounce for ounce. The desire to hold onto him, to anchor him down to her, returned through the further parting of muscle. A craving she so obviously displayed as her hands reached out, clutching at his sides, pulling him closer to her; as close as possible. Her fingers wrapped into the fabric of his clothes, her lungs feeling as though her breath was being out of them by his own. 

By his kiss. 

His teeth grazed against her bottom lip, a mistake that garnered a flighty breath from on reflex. Her mind went hazy, reeling at that single feeling. That is, until it was ripped away from her. He came to his senses, that which he almost lost to, at the moan she breathed into him. The moment the two of them had immersed in came to an end so simply.

Sungyeol pulled away, leaving room for the cool breeze on this foggy morning to bat against Hyunjoo’s face. He diverted his eyes as she looked on at him, searching for an explanation behind his kiss. An explanation that was obvious by now, but that deserved to be said out loud anyway. That she wanted to hear from the lips she felt against her own moments ago — too many moments ago.

He shamefully glanced down at where his hands had gripped onto the railing on either side of her. She followed his gaze, albeit reluctantly, and what she saw caused her to laugh. 

She laughed at the steel bar that now had ten indentations in it, five on either side of her for each of his fingers which had made them. All in an attempt to stop himself. To stop himself from relishing in fantasy any longer. That small moan had him falling from cloud nine and crashing onto the harsh ground that was reality. He had asked himself the same thing then, as she kissed him back. The same question of, was this real?

But, as she laughed and upturned her eyes towards him once more, her smile still there, lingering on her face, he was overcome by it. He drowned in his own feelings which screamed at him so loudly he could hear nothing else. His feelings that were driven on by the unexpectedly soft landing on the ground. The more than welcomed landing into this reality.  

“I,” he stuttered, attempting to say something, anything, as he felt his heart exploding into bits as her eyes continued to gaze on at him from under his taller, hovering frame. And all he could manage was a lame, “I can’t believe that just happened.” 

He ducked his head down, leaning it against her own as he breathed in. Deep. Long. Hard. He had thought about this moment deep, long, and hard. He had thought about how he would go about confessing to her without sounding childish or stupid or simply insincere. Now that he had locked himself into it with his sudden, impulsive gesture, he wasn’t sure what to say. As he soaked her in, as he bathed in her scent, her eyes, and the feel of her skin against his, he was drawing a blank. He was drawing a blank and only one sentence managed to make its way out of his mouth in a cohesive manner. 

“Can we do it again?” 

That was enough. That was enough of an explanation for her as her hand reached up for his neck and yanked him down again; further and further down the rabbit hole. And the two kissed for the second time of many to come.

Song Hyunjoo decided then that she’d keep Lee Sungyeol for as long as she could.

A/N:

Surprise! As I said in the "Wasting Time & An Italian-Speaking Lee Sungyeol" chapter post (which I will delete sometime next week and post up on my blogs instead), the main focus of the next few chapters will be Sungyeol and will be entirely in third person. Not only Sungyeol, however, but Hyunjoo as well. That's the surprise I had in mind. That, and what just happened. So, do you love surprises or do you love surprises? Sidenote: The phrase "I've sent something to keep you" means "I've sent something to make you comfortable/ I've sent something to keep you company/ I've sent something to sustain you." Just in case you didn't know, now you do!

Finally! It happened!
Commence Dance of Celebration!

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