Sunlight Slipping Through the Underside

It’s small.

And Hyun doesn’t mean that in a ‘I’ve lived in a house my entire life and this size of dwelling is for peasants’ type of way. When her dad was between jobs and they lived in an apartment for a few months that was actually smaller than this. The kitchen is nice, the bathroom is clean, and the living room is spacious. Her bedroom is a decent size, too. The walls are nice and white, perfect for paint splatter. If she were moving in with her dad, Kyungsoo, Mina, or Chanyeol, she wouldn’t mind it. Even if she moved in with all of them it would still feel bigger than it does now.

Her bedroom door is less than ten feet away from her mother’s bedroom door. Say, Hyun has to get some water in the middle of the night, and her mother just happens to have the same sort of idea. They’ll have to sip water together...in the dark...together. 

Just imagining the water-sipping adventures they’ll have in the dark is enough to make her cringe all over. This is such a terrible idea. 

“What do you think?” The hand on the small of Hyun’s back feels as cold as ever. Her mother still appears to her as a wandering apparition. A disembodied voice that only catches up with its physical form after a brief pause. It will never stop feeling like some warped dream and nightmare package into one. 

“It’s fine. Nice walls.” Hyun moves over to the place where her bed will be later and tries to seem busy as she examines the dust motes drifting on stale air. The thought hits her belatedly. She goes over to the window to open it. It slides up smoothly enough. Around seven p.m., the sky is a heavier blue and giving away at the edges to burning orange. The air is still warm, but there’s a breeze blowing through that gives Hyun some life. She can breathe again. 

“I bet it’ll be stunning when all of your stuff comes.” Her mother is still trying hard. “You can set up your easel and decorate. I could help if you want. I’m a little artsy myself. Maybe you get some of it from me-”

“I paint alone,” Hyun says. She can hear the bitterness in her own voice. It sounds somewhat like a parent scolding a child for doing something bad. Maybe, on some inward and unconscious level, Hyun is scolding her mother or punishing her, for doing that bad thing she did. Or, maybe she’s just unfathomably pissed and can’t control the fury leaking through her body.

Maybe it’s both.

It could very well be both.

“I’ll leave you to it then.” She sounds so sad that Hyun almost caves. “I’m gonna start setting stuff up in the kitchen. If you need anything.”

What Hyun needs, her mother has already stolen from her with no way of getting it back. When her mother closes the door, it’s only one of the hundreds of walls she’s built between them. After she’s done sulking by the window, Hyun isn’t given much time after that to wallow. The movers are there by eight. While her mother directs them where to put what, Hyun starts unpacking her room first. Her easel goes up first. Everything else is fitting her clothes into the closet, arranging things on her dresser, and making up her bed. When she’s done, she goes to help her mother unpack the living room when the movers have left. She could dwell on all of these things that she’s touching for the first time, or she could breeze through it without saying anything so she can shut herself in her room for the rest of the night. She chooses the latter.

Lying in her bed, she swims between hurt and confusion, as she’s done for the past month. Her mother could’ve called or written. She didn’t. For whatever reason, she felt that staying as far as possible with as little contact would be the answer to fixing their family. She’s doing the same thing she’s always done: making decisions based on what’s best for herself and trying to convince other people it’s for their sake more than it is for her own. The sort of people who make selfish choices and delude themselves into thinking they’re selfless are destined to roam forever. 

As fairytale as her mother materializing from the fog to make up for all of the lost time is, Hyun can’t let her guard down. She doesn’t want to be crushed for a second time. She wants to sleep, but her mind is too busy to rest. Hyun considers calling Mina for a moment; then she realizes that it’s almost one a.m., and being up right now is only normal for her. She checks a text message left by Chanyeol hours ago.

Hope everything’s cool w/ ur mom.

Since sleep is now out of the question, Hyun gets out of bed and goes to pull on some jeans and a jumper. It's easier than she thought it would be to sneak out. Her mother is in her room with the door closed. She's probably asleep. Or, if she's anything like Hyun, she's staring at the wall in a stupor. The carpet doesn't creak, either. She pockets her keys, plugs her headphones into her phone, and stuffs them in. 

Outside, it's the perfect August night. She feels like she's able to breathe now. What she misses the most right now is being able to walk five minutes to her neighborhood park. Unfamiliar with the area, all she can do is follow the lights attached to the condos in the direction of a small playground they passed earlier when riding into the complex. Despite not knowing exactly where anything is, she enjoys the warm breeze and quiet.

Hyun can't tell if she's about to space out or fall asleep, but she feels her phone vibrate before she finds out. It's a text from Chanyeol again.

the whoremongers are headed by us again. interested? 

Under normal circumstances, Hyun would give some lame excuse about preferring her teen angst tunes during a long, hot shower. But, she could use some time away. She surprises herself by entertaining the thought for so long.

She won't end up going anyway.

ᴅ ᴇ ғ ᴇ ᴄ ᴛ  ʀ ᴇ ᴊ ᴇ ᴄ ᴛ s

Hyun hadn't expected to be back at Chanyeol's so soon. But, after some arm-twisting and not-so-subtle Whoremongers brainwashing, here she is. Standing in the shaded room through the curtained waterfall of rose-hued spinel; not real, but pretty enough. The room is thrown into darkness by a set of thick blinds over the big windows. Hyun can’t even remember what she’d planned to do once inside until Chanyeol yanks the blinds open and blistering sun chases the shadows away, revealing huge bookcases and comfy-looking, if a little too big, armchairs. 

Hyun floats over to one bookshelf, floor to ceiling, of nothing but hard binding. Some are dustier than others, but they all look worn. She's proud for some reason. Worn books are always a good sign of something. A sign of what? Who knows. Maybe wisdom or goodness.

It’s pure chance that as Hyun is running her fingers over miles and miles of books her fingertips brush across The Good Funeral by BZK, otherwise known as the narrator of Hyun's youth, and she lets out a small, surprised sound that draws Chanyeol to her. 

“You know BZK?” he asks, clearly pleased.

“I live BZK,” Hyun answers, trying to sound as non-dramatic as possible. 

“What are your other favorites?” Chanyeol slips into one of the armchairs. Hyun can imagine him, younger, lounging as lazy a fat tabby in a similar chair from his childhood home, going through books as easy as breathing on all kinds of days. Sunny days. Rainy days. Days where the sun tries to peek through, but the clouds do their best in blocking its magnificence. All kinds of days. 

“Jade Lagoon and Paint Splatter by Gloria Cyn,” Hyun begins wistfully, BZK clutched to her chest still. “In The Wild, Wild Interweb by Imogen Mai, Kickback Kids by Angel Cooper..."

At some point Hyun stops listing them aloud, only recalls the rest in her mind somewhat consciously aware of Chanyeol's gaze. She's still confused as to what's so interesting about her that he seems to be transfixed. After a few more minutes of idle browsing, Hyun gazes over at the spinel waterfall, past it.

“Hungry?” Chanyeol appears next to her. Hyun shakes her head.

“You know, Mark told me you write poetry." Hyun looks up at him. "I can't remember ever seeing even a sheet of paper in your room."

“I do a little tidying when I'm expecting company.” Chanyeol gives a wry smile. “Does a messy room full of poetry really sound that interesting?”

“Is that supposed to be rhetorical?” Hyun laughs.

"Well then, be my honored guest."

They head up to Chanyeol's room after grabbing a couple of cokes. The bed is in shambles, the sheets are strewn messily, and the pillows are unfluffed. There's a pile of dirty clothes spilling out of his closet door. And, as promised, his desk is flooded with looseleaf, some crumpled and threatening to tip over onto the floor.

“Here she is.” Chanyeol scoops stray papers up, piling them on an oak armoire. 

"You really clean when you're expecting company. Good thing I dropped by unexpectedly, or else I would have never known you are such a paper hoarder." Hyun gapes at the pile. "You do write...a lot."

“What can I say? My teen anguish is like a broken faucet, steadily dripping. Infinite.” Chanyeol gives her a look as he drops on his unmade bed, popping open his coke and taking a swig.

“How is it?" Hyun joins him.

“The coke, or the writing? I mean, I wouldn't say I'm very good. I think the paper massacre on my desk can attest to that. They're mostly scattered thoughts that occasionally rhyme,” Chanyeol muses, flexing his arms behind his head and settling back comfortably.

“No ing way.” Hyun nearly chokes on her words.

“What?” Chanyeol jerks up in surprise.

Hyun bends over Chanyeol to pull his short-sleeve higher up his bicep to completely reveal the fiery tattoo there. It’s clearly a muted golden sun, but she can’t decide if the splash of orange-red is fire or blood. She looks up at Chanyeol, incredulous.

“It’s a bleeding sunrise,” he says. He continues after Hyun just stares perplexed, running her fingers over it, without saying anything. “The sun comes up on another day of slaughter. I may or may not have lost a bet. But, I don't hate it.”

“No offense.” Hyun laughs. "But that sounds kinda fake-deep."

“Did you hear the may or may not have been a bet part?” Chanyeol stresses with a grin. “But, I like to think of it as accidentally profound.”

“I’m sure.”

Hyun doesn’t anticipate the way Chanyeol looks at her and doesn’t stop looking. There is no way she could’ve foreseen Chanyeol raising one hand to caress the base of Hyun's neck, sparking the baby inferno that crackles quietly in her at the light touch. His fingers scratch Hyun's nape softly, sweetly, so unexpected that she stares, jaw unhinged, and uncomprehending for long moments. She must look like a vacant home as she gazes down at Chanyeol's loose smile, full of mirth as smooth and strong as warm waves lapping against a sun-kissed beach, dislodging all reason. 

Either gravity is dragging her, or Chanyeol is pulling her down gently against the sheets. Whatever happens, she's here, and Chanyeol is there, nosing against her cheek and tickling Hyun so she giggles, suddenly drunk on something nearer to delighted suspense. The last sight she sees before her eyelids slip shut, heavy, is the man's face so close to hers, and the heat proudly in his deep, brown eyes, so warm it fills Hyun with some of its undying splendor. 

It’s really weird. Hyun isn’t sure if it’s her lips that are soft, or Chanyeol's, but something is supple and pressing against her in ways that are so new and exhilarating she sighs into the feeling, a sensation that stirs something in her. It’s a tingly feeling, a cross between prickling nervousness and unbridled pleasure. She absorbs it so deep into her bloodstream that she figures she could get high off just the thought of it. 

The sick part is that she doesn’t have to, that Chanyeol is in front of her, pecking her lips as excited as a puppy, metaphorical tail wagging, hands brazen and eager down her sides and on her face. When their tongues mesh in a culmination of steadily amplifying passion, Hyun has to dig her fingernails deftly in Chanyeol's accidentally profound bicep, if only to anchor herself to reality and stop herself from getting lost in the man's endless caverns, so vast and heaping that her skin is burning from an emotion she can only describe as suffocating and strange and beautiful. 

When something pokes against her thigh, her eyes open and she ducks her head. Hyun blinks up at Chanyeol through her eyelashes, breaths coming in short puffs as she tries to even it. The fact that Chanyeol is staring right back, hands her cheeks and a soft grin on his face is not helping Hyun snap out of whatever trance. 

“Do I like you?” Hyun asks finally, breathing still unsteady.

Chanyeol chuckles in amusement. “Wrong question. You mean, ‘do you like me?’”

“How am I supposed to know that? I think I like you. I think I like you a lot. Do you like me?”

“Lahyun, I love you.” And then he’s kissing her again, void of any froth. A kiss that the breath from her lungs and makes her joints go weak. When they have to come up for air, eventually, Chanyeol props himself up on an elbow and smiles down at Hyun like he’s confused about something, but pleased regardless. The feeling is mutual. Hyun doesn’t know what to do or say, so she contents herself with staring happily at Chanyeol's face. Her eyes occasionally dip to the bloody sunrise, but they always find their way back to Chanyeol's open face. 

Just when Hyun thinks, hopes, prays, that Chanyeol is going to kiss her again, he says, “The blood is for the slaughter of youth, and the death of individualism. I got it a few years ago after Mark dared me I couldn't do a triple back-flip. But, it really was a constant and I never really came out of it, rather I grew into it. It became me. It’s apart of me if you can stand the cringe. Sunrise is a bitter, blood-soaked awakening, but sunset is a fulfilled and bittersweet reverence.”

“The Whoremongers?” Hyun guesses. 

“A Park Chanyeol original actually.” The man studies Hyun's expression for a moment, feigned confidence bleeding slowly into abashment. “Fake deep?”

Hyun scoots closer, if that’s even possible, and brings her hands up to Chanyeol's face carefully, thumb swiping against his bottom lip in lazy appraisal. Chanyeol is still an enigma. He’s a large mystery that continues to boggle Hyun even if he’s spelling out what he means to say in plain language. Nothing about Chanyeol is plain. Not his face nor his voice. 

He’s Hyun's favorite conundrum.

“More like accidentally profound.”