Chapter 12 : Gravity

Something always brings me back to you.

Chanyeol

words: 3,7k+

            For one week after that, our lives were like some kind of sad runaway---we moved, from one town to another (first, was Ilsan, then we dove to Yangju, then Dongducheon, then we stopped at Pocheon and rented a guesthouse and had the entire night), we slept in my car at times and looked for any secure motels where we didn't have to sign in under our real names. The universe stayed still when I had him under me. Something like a muted cosmos, and we glued ourselves there; never letting go, never his soul nor my own. Kyungsoo said if we were lucky, we might as well change our identity and live together forever in this sweet escape; but I was perfectly aware that he cried when I wasn't looking, in the far corner of the room---light turned off---one leg folded to upvold his face because his eyes were b with tears too much.

            "What are we going to do today?" he would ask.

            "Fun things," I would answer for that.

            I would pretend that this is what we always wanted---and it was true, in some measure. His smile was but a breathtaking vision, and then I would cry, though not aloud. And if I counted the moles on his neck, when I kissed him there, I would need to use my other fingers---Kyungsoo believed that all his birthmarks were made to be loved, and I believed all the words he said; and sometimes we would laugh with one accord because we should just be living in the dreamwold, and the globe we were currently in wasn't supposed to be real; we weren't supposed to be here.

            If morning arrived, I would tighten our touch and keep him protected. Below the blanket, there, he would hide himself and I would snuggle close at him until he woke up.

I would say I loved him. "I think I always do," I would add. And again with, "Eventhough  some part in my life, I almost... I hardly remembered you anymore."

            He would methodically answered with mumbled words; I'm in love with a man who once was in my nightdream. "What if we are dreaming too, right now?"

            "Then that's okay, because I would still find you anyway."

            "Eventhough I may not know you, at all?"

            "Eventhough you may not know me at all. Our hearts won't lie."

            When the sound outside of our room went unheard, I would lit up my cigarette, and Kyungsoo would ask for one piece, it deep only to spit it out---and stopped in the middle I was trying to count from one to ten. Maybe oneday I would finally reach the number eleven.

            We had everything we wanted for the moment. There was my guitar on the backseat of the car, there was Kyungsoo's engagement ring on the dashboard, and there were the silent motels walls, watching us in stillness as we became one.

            I would pretend not looking at the newspaper, in the morning, as Kyungsoo picked the food for our breakfast---and I would pretend not seeing our faces there. I would not pretend I love him, though---the feelings were too palpable for me to even fake them. But still I would pretend that everything was alright, and I would kid to myself that no one was looking for us, out there; and sometimes in the middle of waiting for the next green light at the intersections, Kyungsoo would ask me one more time, "What are we going to do today?"

            "Fun things," and I would still answer the same way.

****

            Something always brought me back to him.

            I was not there when it happened---it started when Kyungsoo said his head hurt; so I crossed the street, then went inside this pharmacy located on the opposite of the parking area (where I had told Kyungsoo to stay inside the car and wait for me patiently there). Everything was actually fine before. We were only one hour away from Pocheon, about to have our way to Chuncheon, as suddenly Kyungsoo started throwing up all the meal from the morning earlier.

            I watched him, in horror, Kyungsoo who was decked with dried vomit. asking for another plastic bag and continued to barf. Another minute and another gag. Then I eventually said, "Kyungsoo, we have take you to the hospital,"        

            "What?"

            "The hospital, you hear me? Baby, you've been forcing youself too much this whole week."

            "I'm not sick," his accent was strict. I wiped away the sweat that was guttering around his forehead. Kyungsoo was constantly glancing at me with his droopy, heavy lidded eyes.

            "No," I cupped a handulf of his plump cheeks and said, "we're still going to take you to see a doctor."

            But it was easier said than done, for certain. I learned the fact that an unwell Kyungsoo was much harder to deal with. In the end he asked me to buy him some medicines, wrote it on a piece of paper so that I wouldn't take the wrong order. It was a ten minutes drive from the gate of Chuncheon; there had been a row in front of the pharmacy. That was one busy afternoon on Monday, the noises were melding in the background, I noted as I paid for the medications and walked out of the shop feeling hopeful. I crossed the street again. Like someone in camouflage, my face mask was on, and I had my hoodie to cover some parts of my ears and the entire part of my hair.

            I rushed over to my car, the cold wind condensed on the surface of its windows causing me not able to see Kyungsoo's face clearly. Standing from this distance I could only catch a vivid sight of his flossy, brown hair. A rustle beneath my shoes , krak, krak, krak, then I fastened my pace---only to find Kyungsoo was trembling (and sobbing) alone.

            This was how my heart broke.

            Something always brought me back to him.

            I was not there when it happened---I was always away, and this went on, in perpetuum, like some kind of cursed wound. When I unfastened the car door, he was curling up; my Kyungsoo, the only one of my sweetest desire, knees knocked against each other. Like a baby cat. Small, and throbbing.

            And sad.

            His arms were crossed, the left one made it into to the opposite. He rubbed the outline of his body, timidly, as if he was trying to spark the warmth there, except he didn't really have the idea how. I already knew he was hiding something from me, just by the look of it, but while I usually chose not to ask him anything, I reached out to him, and wondered what he had been witnessing.

            I tried not to think about anything bad when he said, “Let’s go from here,” putting up his hands on mine, slowly, then continued with, “Let’s go somewhere distant.”

            But the faint horror in his voice alerted me of all the dreadful thought.

            “Okay,” okay, I trapped him in a tight hug. “We’ll be going out from here.”

            “Make it into somewhere far away.”

            “Sure. Somewhere far away. You don’t need to worry.”

            Rapidly, after that, we drove down the road of Chuncheon. It was no easy matter to act collected at the moment. My heart beat like a blast in parade, mulling over the worst thing that would happen to us. The sky was dark above this countryside street; the smell of rain soon would be hitting our noses. Sitting there, beside me, Kyungsoo kept looking out of the window. Not a tiny word left his nectarous mouth. The winter light refracted on the thin outward layer of the lakes, ranging wide beneath the asphalt bridge, where he glanced down, every now and then.

****

            Something always brought me back to him.

            I grabbed his hand at some point, it was a somewhat ardent touch. A touch born of our old longing. “Let’s have lunch first,” I told him, in an almost stammered manner. “Then you can drink the medicine.”

           We got pass the territory of Yanggu country. Kyungsoo leaned back a little, nodding.  Lips pursed altogether.

            By the time we stopped at this one Chinese restaurant, Kyungsoo took a series of short breaths. I turned around, and there was he, his small fingers gripping on my coat. “What is this, baby?”

            But just as I thought, he didn’t answer.

            He didn’t want to.

            There seemed to be no one besides him and me, and two ahjussi who were sitting five or six table away.

            I reserved a spot for two. Covertly, I intertwined our fingers together, hid it under the table so that no one could see. All the while we were waiting for our food to come, he never once let go of his hold. I faked a cough, aiming for him to notice me. Which he did; his eyes were full, and similar to those of young felines. I fell in love with him for eternity that day, Kyungsoo who flipped down the small book of menus, and up, and down again, maybe because he had nothing to do. Or was simply confused of how to tuck away the pink, evident blushes on either sides of his cheeks.

            “You are blushing,” I pointed out to him, real quick and real quiet.

            “Shut up.”

            “I feel like kissing you, hard and wet.”

            He turned completely red now. “How old are you, really? You often resemble a kid.”

            Are you really twenty three, he continued under a mumble.

            “Who knows? How old was the Chanyeol in your dream, anyway?” answered me (or questioned me), grinning at him playfully as he flashed another light giggle. “I think I want to get back to that age and start everything over.”

            Kyungsoo shrugged. “Around 17, I think?”

            “You think?”

            ---Something always brought me back to him.

            It was kind of weird, and funny, the first time we attempted to talk about our dreams; about the particular me in his, about the particular (but near forgotten) him in mine.

            It was like opening up some part in our lives, that we had been keeping a secret, and locked, for the longest time. Like an innocent yet and difficult point where daughters tell their Mom about the first, bloody period. The shyness, the anxiety, the mixed and heavy feelings, I could sense them all, everywhere, in every joints of me.

            But among the past days of our escape, we had been trying to habituate this subject. Kyungsoo would ask me about the last remaining memory in my head---I guessed he was right when he claimed that our hearts would never lie.

            I had no exact recollection about it; the young me had struggled to write it down, all those vague images within a sloppy, almost unreadable scrribble; but I could only come up with a name. Kyungsoo. Do Kyungsoo. For years. And not even a clear awareness of how he looked like. Until I finally saw him, from the picture Yixing slipped inside his wallet---I catched him there, between other workers in Silenced Ennui; Kyungsoo in a simple black T-shirt and also black, long jeans, one arm over his shoulder was from this man whom later I learned as Kim Jongin.

            Perhaps I had been crying afterwards; perhaps also not.

            But our hearts won’t ever lie, anyway.

            Kyungsoo thought for a bit. “I never specifically asked about it to the certain you in my dream.”

            “Maybe you had, at one situation? Or two. You are just unable to remember it anymore.”

            “Could be the case... I wish I can recall more, though.”

            “Nope, that’s alright,” I cut him off. “17, right? That matches my current soul, to be honest,” from the corner of my eyes how Kyungsoo responded to my words with his constant, silent laugh. “Maybe that’s supposed to be my real age after all.”

            “Maybe? If only we are in charge of that power.”

            “What power, baby?”

            The answer never clocked in from him. But I figured everything out, all already in my mind.

****

            The power to conjure our dreams into reality, he would have said to me. Eventhough it could be anything else---so many possibilities. But I knew it wouldn’t be that much different.

****

            Something always brought me back to him. And it works like that too, for the other way.

****

            Yanggu grew into an exquisite country to me (to Kyungsoo as well, I concluded). It was a nice place, it was close to Sokcho (and again, Kyungsoo made a joke about this; let’s go to Sokcho after this, and rent a cheap apartment and live there forever---you still have a lot of money, don’t you?---, we could form a duo too. You play the guitar and I would sing along; we will be collecting those wons from the beach visitors. The dinner doesn’t have to be something expensive or meaty; the breakfast is alright with just kimchi and egg kimbap. You should sell this car too, and we off to get the much cheaper one. Later when we’re rich again, we go make our own seaside restaurant---we don’t need to be famous, though, because our identity would be uncovered, and it means, there would be no Chanyeol in the morning. And I would be super, super sad), the air was crisp and revivifying, the people we passed were all smiling; whether it was a genuine smile or not, however, we couldn’t tell.

            We managed to get a low-cost guest-house before five in the afternoon. It was only a tiny, old house, to be exact, with only one bedroom and an okay-sized kitchen.

            Kyungsoo was the first to use the bathroom. Placing the clean clothes on the bed, I waited for him to finish. On and off, I heard him humming some mellow tunes, clashed with the flowing of water. He got out about fifeteen minutes later, the towel covering his two perky s and a little chunk of his lovely thighs.

            When I wrapped up my turn, he was standing alone in the kitchen. I approached him closer only after changing my whole apparel (and drying myself clean), my arms around his flat, but spongy stomach. “What are you doing?”

            “What else?” he asked back.

            “Cooking the dinner,” I answered in murmur, pecking him on the neck.

            “There you know the answer so well. Don’t ask then.’

            “So cruel,” I cooed. “But you used to be my cute Mr. Grumpy. Now you are still cute, though not that grumpy.”

            “I’m not cute,” he retorded. I wondered how long he had been denying this fact. I pecked him again, and this time he sighed---it reminded me of the time he used to do this; when Jongin was still all around him and we were still oblivious to each other’s feelings. And I had to seek for extra reasons so that he would want me to take him home.

            “Say what you want. You’re still the cutest to me,” I pecked him for the last time and was ready let him go (the smell of sauteed garlic enfolding the room), but Kyungsoo exhaled the biggest sigh and turned around, kissing me full on the mouth for a while.

           Dinner was spicy chicken with green cabbage kimchi, the last one we bought from a nice local store near here. Kyungsoo also made a small portion of soybean sprout soup, broth was so thick from the leftover chicken bones, but I didn’t touch that. Once we done, we cleared up everything and it was my task to do the dishes. Formerly, Kyungsoo refused to leave me---but it was weird having him looking at me washing the dirty plates, even after one week more of living together (I guessed because his eyes were just so round and big while he did that), so I guided him out the place to watch the TV instead, making sure he drank the medicine first.

            The clock struck seven when I spotted him watching the daily news in the also cramped living room. Kyungsoo patted the empty spot beside him, which I took more than gladly. “There’s nothing interesting being broadcasted,” he said.

            “How are you feeling?” Kyungsoo had rolled the sleeves of his night sweater up to his elbows; even today, the fact that he owned such noticable veins on his hands, in contrast to his cute face, to me still remained unbelievable.

            “My feeling? In what aspect?”

            “Well, in every aspect,” I gave him a supple massage. “And I mean that.”

            He shook his head no, blinked at me with those full moon eyes and exhaled. “Nevermind what happened this morning. I’m alright now, Chanyeol.”

            “Well... You don’t look so. Hence I guess we should stay here for a couple of days.”

            “No,” he shook his head one more time, “no, we can’t.”

            “We can. We are going to take care of you.”

            “Chanyeol, are you crazy? What if---”

            “---What if you almost pass out again?!” I didn’t let him put an end to his words; I know what would have came out to that. What if someone find us? “Your body seems so tired, Kyungsoo, please just---I’m going to talk to the owner and say we’ll be staying here for two more days.”

            His voice bounced down the entire cubicle when he answered back with, “You are crazy.”

            “I do. I do.”

            I hated that we were in this situation.

            Until that moment, I lived only for the sparkling of stars in his round eyes---but he was not safe, here with me.

            I kept seeing him losing his radiance, and all the while I wanted to pull him close but something in me was telling me that this wasn’t his place, that my very enticing Kyungsoo belonged to another universe.

            My heart wasn’t as deep as the shallowest sea and it sure in any form was tiny. I whisked all those thought away---I tried to, and still the guilt kept eating me inside; what if I never decided to diffuse myself into his already perfect life?

            Maybe then he would be happier and he, most likely, would have been married to Jongin, two adopted daughters waiting in the doorway as they went home. But I couldn’t risk myself to lose him again---that was how greedy and selfish I am. The tingle in his laugh, the roaming car engine, the sound of winter rain---a knocking first moisture of spring as I locked our bodies together. I would like to have it forever. I would like to think that we can make it, and Kyungsoo’s joke about changing our names and renting a cheap apartment would somehow alter to be real.

            Eventhough the chance might be just a small step back to impossible.

****

            Against the pile of our dirty clothes sometimes I would stare at my phone, deleting yet another message of Baekhyun---of him, asking where exactly we had been.

            There were just so much stuff I tried to stash away from Kyungsoo’s grasp. That night, we lay side by side. Beneath the dim moonlight, and the darkness of the room, Kyungsoo’s young outline was hidden by my own shadow. The round cheeks that once been his special trait was still there, but not as plump as before. I breathed with my hands behind his waist and my lips on the parting of his hair. Because of his very beguiling fragrance, there seemed to be nothing in him that I hadn’t brushed with kisses. My harmonious Kyungsoo rolled closer into me, head threw back, his neck settled on the eager tug of my mouth.

            In his dream, Kyungsoo said, we were both together in an open landscape. I would always bring my guitar; and for some reasons we would oftentimes be clothed in black. Immediately afterward he would add, “In realness, though, we are also both living in open landscape. Only, ours are not connected. You are there, watching my world, and I on the other hand isn’t much different, witnessing yours.”

            We gasped. And the kiss was over. With the tip of my fingers, I wiped the sweat he had on the bottom of his lips. He was lukewarm and pleasant and saccharine, grunting with a gracefull shrill in his note, all of sudden.

            Kyungsoo listened as I inhaled the breeze around him, cheeks red and aflame. “Chanyeol,” he called---he sang my name. “What if we can’t make it?”

            I don’t know; that was what my brain whispered to me.

            “I don’t know,” that was what I really told him---surprisingly not betraying my mind. “But I don’t want it to happen, though. I would never let it slide.”

            The evening sailed on and on. “Let’s just change our name and reborn,” Kyungsoo peered at the window.

            “And get married.”

            “Yeah---yeah, of course. I would want to adopt a boy... Or maybe two.”

            He might have been dreaming about this too. The flower vase on the table sat like the blockade of blackout and daylight; and then I saw how Kyungsoo’s words invaded my imaginations. I wondered how would that be---starting a family with my ever coveted dream-man. He who had always been so perpetual. At this point I began to picture Kyungsoo as my husband, the joy I would go through and the honor I would perceive; and yet my consciese was again breaking the hope.

            The chance might be just a small step back to impossible---I squinted at it; my reflection in his eyes grimaced back at me.

****

            Something will always bring me back to him.

           ----But something, something, too, always aimed to tear us apart, in the interceding time.

****

           Kyungsoo had called---he had sung my name again before we drifted off to sleep.

            “Chanyeol,” it did sound that melodic. “Chanyeol, do you wonder why I cried this morning?”

            I would want to give him my answer, but he cut me faster. “Someone is following us; no, they were actually in a group of people---and they were holding these small papers. Your face... your face was in every of them. I---I’m scared, Chanyeol.”

           I would want to give him all the share of my warmth, but suddenly the strength in me, the guts, the credence; all was not there anymore.

****

tbc~