Don’t Go Without Me

The girl smiles, a bright smile so rare in the world that TaeYeon wishes to capture it and lock it away in her wrenched heart. She takes the cold hands, rubs the palms with her thumbs, leads her back onto the bed.

The smile never shifts, and perhaps that’s why she loves her so much. It would be possible, she had thought before, to steal their souls and sanity away, rob it by themselves in ski masks. The windows are left open, but they shiver only at their accommodating hips, burning skins, mindless, lopsided grins. Jessica holds on tightly to TaeYeon’s hands, never quite understanding the concept of space; space in between their bodies, space in between their fingers, space that bound TaeYeon’s soul to Jessica’s.

Heaven or Hell or the in betweens—it mattered only that TaeYeon made Jessica cross her heart to take her when she leaves.

“Please don’t go without me.”

Eleven stories up, a beautiful swan dive down.

There are some tears shed, as TaeYeon moves in, whispers a little more hope that are crushed in a matter of seconds. Their mangled hearts of monsters and men, easily light, like skipping rocks across the lake, and the rocks sink, sink, sink.

But the tears are potent, undiluted of fear and happiness at the same time. TaeYeon kisses dark red lips, tastes the intoxication of wine resting on the tip of her tongue sweetly, tenderly.

Their neighbour underneath them likes watching the view from his apartment. He couldn’t be blamed. He sits on a plastic chair, a cup of coffee scalding his palm, sips, exhales, breathes deeply and pretends the world revolves around him.

He laughs at his selfishness, and his two tangled neighbours from upstairs laugh with him. He could hear them swearing they have never felt so alive, almost hear them whistling at him and calling his name with some kind of twisted insanity.

His loose robes hang from his skinny body. They’ve told him to eat more, because he’s way too skinny, but he doesn’t hold some food in well, and avoids them completely. He almost regrets not risking it, as he watches the spectacular dive, pure delirium.

Sometimes he would come home and hear yelling from upstairs, catching words that burned through cement and punched holes through walls. They travelled to his ears, made him toss and turn on his bed and wonder if love was such an elusive term only meant for lovesick teenagers.

It’s not. He doesn’t wave at his neighbours the next time he sees them, because they are somewhere in between Heaven and Hell, eleven floors down, a perfect swan dive. Hands are intact, fingers broken, but still somewhat crookedly seeking each other’s.

TaeYeon and Jessica. He recognised them. They were the couple who knew everything they shouldn’t, always tried to step into places they never understood.

The neighbour retreats into his apartment, unsure if he should smile or laugh or cry or do all of them at the same time. But he is sure that TaeYeon had begged to go with Jessica, and they loved each other to never completely fall out.

~+~

YuRi is pretty sure YoonA looks better singing to Stevie Wonder, though her words garble and never come out perfectly—YuRi understands them easier than she understands Stevie Wonder. YuRi stops the boat halfway out into East Sea, kills the engine and grins at YoonA. YoonA grins too, puffing up the two lanterns and using a flicker lighter to light them up. Like hot-air balloons, they float into the warm sky, and they become part of it there, embraced and welcomed like old brothers.

YuRi and YoonA grasp their hands and close their eyes, mutter a prayer for whoever they’ve lost; people they know, people they don’t know, strangers they’ve known for their entire lives, friends who they’ve never known, the people they see on their daily bus rides to school, the commuters on the last train back.

“Peter Pan?” YuRi casually asks and YoonA nods with a brief glimmer in her shifting eyes that look like water.

YoonA dips her hands into the saltwater, still smiling even when her open wounds sting in saltwater. She looks so horribly lucid that YuRi that YoonA starts to seem transparent.

Transparency can be beautiful.

YuRi starts taking off her clothes, her shirt becoming a vague, warped shape of blurred colour in the darkening waters. YoonA mirrors her, earning every whisper and promise of ‘forevermore’ as their skins are bared, flaws and imperfections casting beautiful patterns on their faces. They are .

The lanterns disappear from sight and they descend into the waters. Squealing at the temperature, gripping onto the sides of the boat.

YuRi moves closer to YoonA. “Don’t go without me.”

YoonA fits her head into YuRi’s neck, kissing the lines and bones. She laughs, because going anywhere without YuRi would be like walking without feet, breathing without lungs. It feels like their skins have been shed, like it was before bodies were invented, and they were fleeing souls playing in the clouds.

“Where would I go without you?”

YuRi moves away from the boat, takes YoonA with her. YoonA holds onto YuRi’s shoulders, feeling nothing on her legs but the slow delay of water pushing them back. Her sides feel numb, because the water has hugged her tight.

“Hold your breath until you see a light,” YuRi tells her, and YoonA says nothing, but that nothing means everything. It’s dark at first, but everything gets brighter.

They sink to the bottom of the sea to find the road with no end.

~+~

SooYoung takes the last train home, a night spent drowning becomes too tiring for her. Her mind is dull, her eyes seeing but blind, feels like enlarged portions of her face. She hangs her head and presses her moist palms onto the bench. A bright song plays on the intercom, one that feels humorously unbalanced with the heavy, dense night, followed by a barely distinguishable voice garbled by the speakers informing her of the slight delay in train services. It’ll take about five minutes for the train to arrive.

In those five minutes, a soft humming makes her insides feel like they’ve been smoothed over with some kind of healing ointment. The burn in her heart and stomach fades away. She looks up, somewhat relieved she’s not alone anymore.

The girl does a slight twirl. She’s not dressed for the weather—a flowery sundress is not what humans wear during winter. She has flyers in her hands; primary colours of red, blue and green.

SooYoung checks the time. Four minutes.

Her shoulder is bony and edged out strangely, splashed with light purple spots.

“How do I look?” the girl asks shyly. “I’m dressed for the best.”

SooYoung falls in love often, which is why she comes back to the same place often. She falls in love with books, words, a melody, music, the weather, strangers. She falls for too many things.

SooYoung wears her best smile. “What’s your name?”

“Tiffany.”

“Well, Tiffany, you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen in my whole life.”

The girl’s cheeks flush.

Three minutes. SooYoung imagines the train moving like a metal snake.

“Where are you going dressed like that?”

Tiffany looks down to the stack of flyers in her hand. It’s one-sided, SooYoung had tried to read the underneath of the flyer.

“I’m waiting for the train.”

SooYoung smiles at her answer and sees deeper into the girl, understand her mixed-up soul because they are the same. SooYoung s her jacket and slips it off, lets it sink to the floor. She takes off everything until she’s left with her pants, shirt and socks, because that’s what she wears on a summer night.

Both of them are falling, falling, falling.

“I’m waiting for the train too.”

Two minutes—SooYoung can hear the train.

Tiffany holds the flyers closely to her chest, her cheeks burning. “Would you love me?”

The stranger holds out her hand, and SooYoung smiles at her, takes it. They stand together by the platform. The complexity in simplicity makes her feel weightless. Dirt and small rocks press into the soles of her feet through the socks.

SooYoung thinks: There is no such thing as loving cruelly, crudely, harshly.

“I would.”

One minute. They can see the headlights.

SooYoung turns to Tiffany, and she sees her life in curved eyes and curved lips.

“Just don’t go without me.”

Tiffany lets go of the flyers and it’s a colourful disorientation as they fall off the platform, onto the tracks.

—ジュリエット