Silence clung to Taekwoon like a nightmare, and hovered in the air around him. He let the silence envelop him in a cozy blanket. He took a sip of his latte. Still hot.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? You didn’t even care about this relationship, did you? You said you cared about me, cared about us, that you didn’t need words to prove that to me. Well, your actions aren’t proving anything, either. Why did you let it go on this long if you were so ing miserable with me? Huh, Taekwoon? Why?” The angry words bounced off of Taekwoon’s wall of silence and dissipated into the tension hanging thick between the two of them. Taekwoon took another sip of the coffee. It burned away the words he wanted to say, the words that he couldn’t form. He felt the scalding liquid pour into his belly and warm him, even though he felt so cold.

Hongbin made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like the lovechild of a sob and a scoff. “Can you at least look at me?”

Taekwoon’s eyes lifted from his steaming cup of coffee to caress Hongbin’s face. His face looked perfect even while deep in anger, the perfection of what Taekwoon could no longer have—did he even have it at all?—hurting his eyes and cooling the warmth the latte left in his belly. He dropped his gaze back to the white plastic of the lid on his drink. He watched as the steam slipped through the same hole he used to siphon away the delicious liquid. Translucent white tendrils reached for the air, only to disappear as soon as they set out on their journey, de-materializing, and fading into oblivion. Taekwoon compared this to Hongbin’s and his relationship. It was glorious when it started, all they wanted was each other, to be in each other’s presence, to have more and more of each other. But, like the steam reaching for the heavens, the more they stayed together, the faster the bonds holding them together began to unravel and soon it had disappeared like the steam itself. Maybe, Taekwoon though, the steam isn’t such a good thing to compare Hongbin and his relationship to, after all. He glanced back to Hongbin’s face. Hongbin’s eyes weren’t locked on Taekwoon’s anymore, though. Hongbin was staring at the slowly curling and unfurling steam, watching as the gas floated and dissolved away.

The silence extended to capture Hongbin in its embrace.

Taekwoon wondered what Hongbin was thinking about, wondered why Hongbin was staring so intently at his latte. He carefully slid the insulated cup across the table so that it sat in front of his tablemate.

Hongbin’s eyes grow slightly, and silence scampers away from him. “…Your coffee?” 

Taekwoon nodded and watched as Hongbin swallowed the steam that reminded him of them. Without his coffee in his hands, the biting cold nipped at his fingers again.

“Thank you,” Hongbin said, but continued to use the cup as a warming place for his hands. Taekwoon stared at his drink. “Maybe we should go inside. I’m freezing.”

Taekwoon wondered why they hadn’t chosen a table that was inside in the first place. It was cold—not cold enough that they could see their breath-puffs, but cold enough that bare arms would be battered with the chill—and late—but not so late that it was suffocatingly dark, but late enough that the sun wanted to hide its face from them.

Hongbin stood, but Taekwoon stayed seated and reclaimed his coffee. He contentedly sipped it.

Hongbin sat.

And sighed. “You literally haven’t said a word to me since we got here. Is this really just going to sit and settle like this, without us actually talking about it?”

Taekwoon didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t want to not talk about it. Confusion gnawed at his stomach, and he drowned it in his sweet, burning drink. 

Hongbin closed his eyes. Taekwoon kept his own open. For a few seconds, silence reigned again, and Taekwoon could relax. He was reminded of when the morning would begin anew and he would wake up next to Hongbin, who he was sure was his soulmate. He scoffed inwardly. Soulmate. Destiny. ‘Meant to be.’ He’d thought that he and Hongbin were those and more. 

Mornings were the most beautiful with Hongbin. Sunlight drifted in lazily through horizontal blinds, throwing bars of light across their shared bed. An aggravating slice of sunshine always streaked across his eyes to wake him, but it always fell perfectly on Hongbin. Illuminated in his sleep, Hongbin was more beautiful than anything Taekwoon had ever seen, and if he’d had to give a piece of his soul to see when mornings spilled like diamonds on Hongbin’s skin forever, he would have. He especially liked when Hongbin had awakened (after staring at Hongbin sleep for what always felt like hours). Hongbin would always smile sleepily at Taekwoon as if Taekwoon himself were the most beautiful thing that Hongbin had ever seen (which…would make absolutely no sense, Taekwoon thought) and say, “Good morning, lovely.” And that’s when Taekwoon didn’t wish for the silence, but to be able to hear Hongbin speak for the rest of both of their lives, and even past then. 

Hongbin opened his eyes again, and their eyes captured each other’s. 

Taekwoon broke the eye contact and stood. Hongbin’s eyes followed him. “Where are you going?”

“I need more coffee.”

Hongbin stared up at him with fire rekindling in his eyes. “You barely say anything to me for weeks, and now all you can say is ‘I need more coffee’?! Is that all you have to say to me, after all the we’ve been through together?”

Taekwoon glanced from Hongbin to the door of the café they had been sitting in front of. He wanted to tell Hongbin that he never wanted them to ‘go through .’ He wanted them to be the dictionary example of a ‘perfect relationship,’ to have the happiness that blossomed freely in the beginning until the end of time. He wanted to be able to make Hongbin happy again, to see joy dancing in Hongbin’s eyes.

At that moment, though, Hongbin looked angry enough to spit glass shards at Taekwoon’s face. “Never mind, just this, okay? I’m so ing tired of you acting like you can’t ing speak when you are perfectly capable of forming words just like everyone else! Why the hell can’t you just communicate? I know you can, so what are you so ing afraid of? Your own voice?” 

Taekwoon froze.

He’s not afraid of his voice. He can speak, and he isn’t afraid to. Taekwoon stared in disbelief at Hongbin’s fuming face. Taekwoon realized that Hongbin doesn’t understand how ing difficult it is to try to say what he’s thinking or feeling. It’s not that he’s incapable of doing it, he just finds it challenging to put his emotions into words. Even when he is able to find the words, sometimes the silence snatches them away from him, and he has to struggle to regain them. 

Hongbin didn’t understand. 

He didn’t understand that Taekwoon wasn’t just “A Man of Few Words”; he actually had to psychologically battle with the silence that grappled with him. 

Taekwoon shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, this,” he said, and pushed open the door to the café.

If you actually made it through my crap to get here, thank you. I'm honored. It was only a drabble, but I'm thinking of making a whole story for it. Also, hurray, my first finished piece of something. ^v^