(just come home to me, come home to me.)

If there is one thing Ten doesn't have in his seemingly almost ideal life, it would be continuity. It would be that the occurrence of people coming and going off his life. He finds it all so empty how nobody has stayed with him for the sake of loving him. He often lies in his bed and ponders, what is so wrong with him that he can't make even one person hold on to him?

It is all for the reason that there is only one person whom he desires to stay in all the worlds he lives. And it is only that one person who keeps coming and going, coming and going, driving Ten to the edge of the thought that she won't come back one day.

July 11th, 2016

The girl in brown tresses laid beside him on a warm bed in one summer afternoon, her hands were folded above her stomach as if she was waiting for her death. Ten gazed at her for how long of a time he couldn't remember as she gazed up at the ceiling, the back of his fingers occasionally brushing upon her cheek.

She would never realize how she was his world.

"I wonder why humans enjoy this habit of putting the world in a glass."

"Because-" Ten paused for a while, pondering an answer that was true for him. "-because we want to have the ability to look into the world while we are being protected. We want to see the world without getting hurt."

She tilted her head closer, put her cheek to the back of his hand. "But it is so fragile. Glass is so easy to shatter."

Ten was too engrossed in remembering details and differences since Sooyoung had come home, gripping and holding, clutching to the image of Sooyoung he feared will disappear in a second.

"Don't leave, Sooyoung." Dear, deer eyes pleaded, pleaded and pleaded. This time Sooyoung turned to him, and scooted closer, an arm of her slipped through the empty gap between his neck and the white sheet to pull him closer, laying his head to the crook of her neck. Ten had never felt so aware yet safe like this. This was ephemeral, he thought, despite his wish for it to last for a lifetime.

He pulled away after a moment, a breath away from her lips, tired and dreamy eyes gazing back at him. He wondered if his gaze owned the same intensity as hers. He wondered what had happened to her on the times she wasn't around. 

She pressed three of her fingers to his cheek, below his eyes and leaned in. He closed her eyes, feeling flutter of her eyelashes against his fingers.

They breathed each other in, starting from the lips, then fingers interlacing, skins violently brushing, their hearts out of their ribs, no longer encased inside their glass of a body. 

Ten closed his eyes, hoping to carry this into his dream.

 

(quick, light legs ready to run, faraway eyes and hair always flying , never tucked in. girls like her just drive you to tears)

Sooyoung was weeping on his side, he knew that she was going to leave.

Ten refused to open his eyes because he knew that he would shatter.

What he did all night was keeping himself awake and held Sooyoung so close to his body, making sure she was there, that she would never go again.

But Ten loved her enough that his grip around her was not tight enough to crush her. Love did its wonders to Ten, who blindly longed for a girl whose legs are too light to be held by shackles of affectionate hugs and truthful promises.

 

He woke up the next morning to his favourite flower.

"Keep this flower alive until I come back."

Ten shedded a tear and wondered if Sooyoung ever truly love him.

 

March 11th, 2010

It used to be Sooyoung disappearing out of the blue and Ten always managed to track her down when nobody could. 

"You should stop worrying people around you like this, Sooyoung," Ten stated sternly, when he pulled her out of the janitor's room at 6 PM on Friday evening.

Sooyoung only silently followed him as he angrily stared ahead of the road to her home. When it was close to her home and the people around her neighborhood had closed their blinds and got into their respective houses, she pecked him on the cheek.

"I give you the very privilege to own my heart since now!"

It was so foolish how he had seen her in a different light ever since her outright confession to him, how it turned out that he was the one (and still is) terribly in love with her.

July 20th, 2018

Sooyoung always come back. No matter how he was always left in tears whenever she left, he still waited for her. 

All for the single promise when they were nineteen and she was in the verge of becoming twenty. Twenty and exhausted by life. Cigarettes was her escape away from his kisses that she found too sweet for her sour mood.

"Just talk to me. Stay. You don't need to do anything, Ten. Hearing you breathe beside me already calms me enough." Sooyoung has her way of saying gentle words with so much casualty and coolness as if it didn't mean anything.  It meant  everything to both of them. Sooyoung may have grown up like most adults at this phase of her life, but she was no liar.

It was around night time, they were hanging out in the playground on their neighborhood.

She sat on the swing while Ten sat on the other one beside her. On one summer vacation in their second year of college.

“I know your parents hate the idea of me hanging out around you, Ten,” the cigarette dangles from her thin fingers, eyes looking ahead to him but not at him. As if Sooyoung was seeing all the future ahead without him in her life.  

His fingers reached out to push the flying tresses behind her ears. Sooyoung didn’t budge like the stillness that stayed between them when he caught her smoking from his bedroom, her window right across his. The kind of stillness that made Sooyoung stare and not budge. They were staring at each other then, all things that were wrong bloomed out  of Ten's eyes  from her perspective then. Now, Ten was gentle like the wind caressing her face.

"That's not true," Ten painted another clear blue sky across the dark stars. "They just don't like how you are hurting yourself like this. They have known you for so long." Sooyoung wasn't used to so much warmth around her these days. Ten, however, was an exception.

Sooyoung  turned away because looking at Ten made her want to cry. Looking at Ten, him with so much warmth, so much love, so much positivity and colours that managed to make her tremble under her skin even in the dark. Trembling lips kissing cigarette butts for another calming . Sooyoung closed her eyes and looked down so the tears didn't show.

Ten watched her exhaling translucent smoke slowly. There was only a distant sound of cars passing by and the occasional sound of her shoes scruffing the ground.

"Do you remember that I am half-Thailand?"

Sooyoung liked it that Ten knew when to break the silence. "How can I forget that? Looking at your face already says it all."

He grinned. Sooyoung looked at her watch. 1:30 AM. Her mind wasn't still in one piece, she felt.

"Sooyoung." He called out, tugging on her jacket.

"Hm?"

"Does it help?"

She pursed her lips. She knew what he meant. The cigarette. "Do you want to try?"

He chuckled and it made her wonder. "I smoke, Sooyoung. Since the beginning of college."

It just made her stare harder at Ten. "Then stop."

He gazed at her steadily. "You also have to stop."

"Don't do this to me, Ten." Her voice shook as she inhaled another smoke in and stepped on the dumped cigarette. "I'm doing this because I can't think straight! This ing stick, I'm using this to calm myself okay!" she quietly lashed out, standing up angrily away from him.

"You made me sound like I'm a ing joke." 

Ten closed his eyes. Sooyoung was prone to getting hurt and at the same time, prone to hurt him with her sensitiveness. "You keep forgetting that it is not only you who are a mess. Do you think I'm in one piece, Sooyoung?" Ten gently uttered this.

Realization sank in too late and guilt ate her up. She forgot that even the sun owned a shadow. Slowly, she stepped towards Ten, whose eyes were still bright but his smile was broken.

Cigarette-scented fingers cupped both of his face. "Still can't settle with your major?"

"I hate my parents for making me choose architecture," the irritation surfaced. Most negative emotions were easy surface whenever Ten lost his composure. "I hate myself for obeying them."

"Because you are a good son. You are a good person." Sooyoung whispered close to his face, sounding like a dream. 

"I wish I had enough bravery to do what I really want. Like you."

Sooyoung stopped and stood up properly. "I just followed my guts. All I have is my writings."

"Which makes you so passionate about it. Which makes you the best writer in the world. " My world. Ten didn't say it out loud, fearing Sooyoung will find him too sweet and leave. 

"Not yet, perhaps." 

"Shall be, I pray."

She shook her head in disbelief. "You don't pray, Ten."

"I'll start praying for you."

She brushed his hair with her fingers. "Ten, will you promise me something?"

"Only if I can keep it."

A dim smile settled on her lips. "I'm afraid you can't keep this one."

His smile fell. "What is it?"

"Will you wait for me, Ten?"

"Why? Are you leaving? What do you mean?"

Her fingers were on his shoulders now, trying to calm him down by patting him slowly. She opened , but only a mere sigh that came out. 

"I'm-I'm just wondering. Will you?"

That promise made him wait. That promise Ten made even though it made him want to hold her back more. Ten blindly promised for something he couldn't understand himself.

As Ten reminisces the long history the both of them had, someone rang the doorbell. Ten gets up from his desk, sprawled with half-finished blueprints.

He opens the door and is stunned seeing Sooyoung, a firm smile plastered across her face. A firm, resolved smile. She looks more vibrant somehow, a shade of blush coloring her cheek and she looks thinner. 

"Sooy-"

"I need to tell you something."

Ten massages both of his temples. "Are you breaking up with me?"

Her eyes fell. "No. Not even if I was forced to."

"Then, what is it? You're scaring me."

Her fingers sweep across his hair. "Please don't."

The next word she'll utter and the next will shake his soul until tears painfully fall from his eyes, until his hand grips on Sooyoung in such a gentle way so that she won't be hurt anymore, until a desire to kill is so big it wells up on his chest, until he doesn't know if he can look at her without feeling hurt by himself.

Ten can never imagine a world where his lover is being deflowered by another man. He can't imagine how deep the scar was that Sooyoung chose to keep it to herself. That was the cause of her constant cries, sleepless nights and their midnight talks.

Sooyoung tries to cage the tremor inside her, looking upon her broken lover that looks so unhinged she feels so helpless. 

Ten is quick to realize that he is not the one with the problem here. "Come here, Sooyoung," he opens his arms wide right after he finished crying to his palms. "It's okay, you're here now. It's okay."

Sooyoung drags her feet and ties her arms around him, taming the anger and the sadness inside her for her helplessness. 

Ten just stays silent while holding her because he is not sure if Sooyoung is being calm or just holding back her tears.

 

By night time, Ten knows Sooyoung won't be sleeping tonight.

"I'm glad that you told me, Sooyoung." Ten hands her a cup of coffee and sits on the carpet beside her, leaning to the big window that is like a gate to the stars. 

"Right after I came home, I wanted to kill myself." She mumbles, taking the mug from Ten. "I was destroyed, but the world kept going like it did. I felt so insignificant." Sadness and regret are clogging her breathing. " I felt guilty. For myself, for my parents, for my friends, for you, that I can't protect myself. That I was so harmless, I could only-" Not even a sip, Sooyoung put down the mug beside her, and hug her knees close, closing and caving in.

For this time, Ten only gazes at her from her side. He knows that she really dislikes it when she is caught crying.

In movies and novels, the other lover tends to make the crying one face him, that crying her heart out is okay in front of him. But Ten and Sooyoung are real and he has known her for too long and too well that this is the side she doesn't want him to interfere.

"Just know that I'm here," Ten slumps into laying down on the carpet, feeling the child in him sipping back through his memories.

Ten recalls beautiful memories in the back of his head whenever sadness tries to sneak in (one of the reasons is watching Sooyoung cries and unable to do anything. His selflessness knows that Sooyoung is frail, but she is doing this to remain strong. Nobody understands, but Ten tries).

"I still keep those poems you wrote for me occasionally back then. You started writing those for me when we were in the second year of high school." Ten soothingly chants, like a bedtime story, his finger lightly trace the the fabric of her pants . "I still remember that you intentionally wrote them because you said everyone in school was attracted to me, so you placed them in my books, in my locker, and even in my pocket while I was talking with Seulgi-" Ten pauses for a while because the shaking has slown down and Sooyoung has started to listen.

"-even when she was dating Taeyong."

"He was too bizarre for her, anyway." She slowly looks up and mumbles. Ten gives a small grin.

"If I am honoured with a flower for every time you light up my world, I think I would be buried by a maze of it."

"Is that your favourite? That one is tacky. I wasn't having much inspiration."

Ten's smile widens, his eyes crease and the night has never felt this warmth. Sooyoung wants to lay beside him, but chooses to stay in her position. She wants to feel this small distance between them. 

"I have too many favorites. Besides, that one felt so straightforward, it felt like you were saying it in front of me."

Sooyoung's face softens, her fingers reach out to brush his hair. "I don't deserve you, Ten."

"Yeah, I know," he says playfully, which makes her chortle. 

Her eyes land on his eyes, tired and a bit red from late nights of finishing blue prints in hoping of creating sanctuaries from them. "You should not see me like this."

He smiles, yet again, as if he has no limitations for it in front of her. "There is never a reason to hide anything from me."

"No. Not this, Ten." She shakes her head in denial, the sway of her hair not missing a beat. "I don't want to lose anything precious again. I'm sorry for leaving you. I thought by travelling, I can forget. But I didn't. I never did."

He pulls her to lay down beside him, interlacing his fingers to her fingers as if he will never let go. "I wish I can show you the stars right now, so you can see how they shine for you."

Her empty hand covers over her face as she chokes out a tear, feeling overwhelmed with so much love and support he is showing, feeling so so grateful that he doesn't turn his eyes away from him. 

So far, he is the only person who has shown this much empathy to her. 

Ten forces himself to stay in his position, feeling the tears in his throat while tightly grippin into her hand. 

Even if Sooyoung is broken, seemingly beyond repair, she is here.

And that is what matters the most to Ten, compared to anything.