Listen
Do You?"Listen to what I say
(Listen to what I say)
Pray for peace people everywhere"
Listen
Hanjoo (Hansol & B-Joo [Byungjoo])
Three years.
Three years is a long time. People can meet the love of their life, can unmeet the love of their life. They can change the world, for the good or for the bad. They can become a whole other person in three years. And people, in the space of three years, can die.
But he didn't. So why am I dreading this, while I am at the same time estatic? Why do I feel like something happened, something happened to him, or to us? Why do I dread this, our first time seeing each other, talking to each other?
I don't dread him, though. I fear what has happened to him, for three years of war is not easy on the soul, and I know he, especially, feels it too when another is hurt. I've always loved that part of him, but now I worry. That certain kind of empathy, that raw joy or sorrow or anger of hurt he makes his own, can make him a sheep in a pack of wolves, in war.
So here I sit, my nails tapping against my knee. Outside, the day is just drawing to a close, another metal bird taking flight so that it cuts into the setting sun, but doesn't leave a mark. People swirl all around me, dragging loads, all with their own worries, their own lives, their own reasons for being here.
I'm sitting in a chair, round backed and dark in color, near where a plastic tunnel stretches to nothing, at least not yet. His plane is scheduled to fly in two minutes from now.
I remember when I met him. He was a waiter, I just out of college, dancing for pay. I always came to the restaurant he worked at after practice, because they had the best hot chocolate in town and the sweetest boy with neon purple hair that I had ever met. We started to talk more. We became friends. Three years after I had first walked into the building, we started to date. Three years after that, he left for the army, and I was left waiting.
But he was not cruel. No, he told me to let go, if I had to. He told me to not wait three years for him. But I insisted. I wouldn't leave him. I would wait.
And wait I did.
And now he's so close, and so far, and I can hear my heart thumping in my ears, too fast. I lean forward, clasping my hands and resting my elbows on my thighs. I close my eyes, letting my hair fall down over them, bowing my head. I try to swallow, but my throat's too dry.
Please let him be okay, I think. Please don't hurt him.
He's innocent. He's sweet, he's kind, he's a far better person than I. Why did he have to go? Why wasn't it me?
Because I fear he won't be able to forget things he's seen, and I know he is not the kind of strong that can survive that unscathed. He is strong, but in a different way. He's strong in a way that will be weakness where he was, and I am scared for what happened to him. Oh, God, I'm so scared.
I feel a tap on my shoulder. I freeze, hardly daring to move. When I don't lift my head, a laugh rings out. It's just as I remember it.
"Aw, am I really that scary?" He asks, and I can hear the smile in his voice. I lift my head, lock my eyes with him. It's him. It's him. The same smile, the same eyes. His beautiful hair is shaved close to his skull, and the purple has probably faded long ago, but it was him.
"Byungie?" I whisper, but I'm already on my feet and wrapping my arms around him, burying my face in his jacket. He laughs again, but when he speaks it sounds like he's holding back tears.
"Hey, Hannie." I let out a sob as I cling closer to him, shutting my eyes, feeling his steadiness, his gentleness, his gorgeousness. I missed him so much. Just so, so much. And he's alive. He's alive, he made it, he made it back to me. And that's all that matters now.
He's been back for a week.
A whole week, which is long, in retrospect, but compared to three years, and the nine we've known each other, it's nothing at all.
Byungjoo had to visit his parents the next day, so I went with him, determined to not let him out of my sight after I had lost the love of my life for so long. He seems the same. Happy, with that little glint in his eyes. We've started dating again, falling back into old habits without a word.
And Byungjoo would be happy. It almost seemed like he never left. Almost. But every once in a while, his eyes would lose their sparkle, and he would stare into space with wide eyes, fear instead of glitter in his eyes, as if he's seen a ghost when all I see is air. He would flinch away at nothing. Once, I caught him wiping away tears in the night.
But I never asked, and he never told. I worried over it, I worried over him, but I didn't force him, and I tried to hide my growing concern for my boyfriend. He would tell me when he was ready. Forcing it out of him would only make it worse, and the last thing I want to go is hurt him.
He's had enough hurt for a lifetime.
Two weeks.
Two weeks since he came back. And six days since he began to have nightmares. Nightmares that woke him, gasping for air and shivering with fright, in the night. He seems so vulnerable then, like a butterfly in a cocoon. No defenses. Nothing.
I don't pretend to be asleep; I hug him, try to comfort him, and maybe it helps. But I don't ask, and he doesn't tell. But his eyes start to darken with sadness, and the nightmares are several times a night.
I don't sleep anymore.
I feel like we're on a tightrope, now. I feel like on either side is a choice, and none are good. So we'll just stay here, balancing precariously, because we have nowhere else to go.
But we'll have to fall, sooner or later.
Three weeks.
It's been three weeks since he came back to me, and I fear he's falling.
He doesn't think I notice it, but I do, when he silently sits there, night after night, not daring to sleep, not daring to be at the mercy of his mind. I notice it when he winces, when he fights back the tears, when he sees something I can't. No matter how much I want to. No matter how much I want to see in the place of him.
It's after midnight, snow falling down lightly, when we walk home after a midnight movie, hand in hand. He swings our joined hands idly, stopping occasionally to tip his head back and catch a falling snowflake on his tongue. He seems like his old self now, and I'm soaking it up, knowing it won't last long.
Byungjoo grins up at the moon, nose and ear tips red with cold. I take the opportunity, and reach down, cup a handful of snow, and pelt it at his head. He froze, the snow falling in clumps to his collarbone.
"Hannie, how could you?" But he was laughing too, already reaching down. I squealed, and ran hide behind a tree as Byungjoo charged me, his whole face now red with cold. He managed to corner me under a shop's overhang and deliver me a snowball in the face. I was stunned by the cold for a second, before I shook it off and chased after the laughing Byungjoo. But I lost my footing on a stretch of ice on the road, and crashed to the ground.
The first thing I felt was blinding pain, stunningly cold, in my nose, and cold that started at my face and spread everywhere else. The stupid ice had broke. Byungjoo gasped above me and rushed over as I tried to haul myself out of the freezing pool of water. I was still laughing, breathlessly, even though it hurt my nose.
"Hannie! Oh my god, are you okay?" I tried to speak, but ended up swallowing half the water in my mouth and spitting out the other half. Coughing, still leaning my weight on my palms, head down, I could only manage a nod. I had never felt so cold.
"Um, Hannie? Your hair kinda froze," Byungjoo chuckled from above me as I finally managed to push myself out, thoroughly drenched and shivering.
"Aw, sweetie, you're going to completely freeze," Byungjoo cooed, still occupied with trying to warm up my hair, as I tried to wipe off some of the water form my face. When I brought my hand back from my nose, it was streaked with red.
"Oh." My nose started throbbing with more force as soon as I touched it.
"What?" Byungjoo asked, before seeing my bloody hand and fell silent. He didn't move an inch. I tested my nose again and decided it probably wasn't broken, but when I turned around, Byungjoo was still staring, his eyes wide and tortured and dark, so dark, at the blood I had wiped off my hand onto the snow.
"Byungie?" I asked him, my voice soft, but he couldn't tear his gaze from the blood. He raised his hand to his cheek, but it feel as soon as his fingertips brushed the snow. He was mouthing something now, over and over and over. Don't.
I couldn't do anything. I just watched as he started to sob, empty gasps of air, his eyes dry, as the blood swam in front of his eyes. I was frozen, but I didn't notice.
"Byungie?" I whispered, and he began to cry. Sofly, but so sad and heartbroken and so vulnerable.
"Hannie," he managed to whisper, before he buried his head in his hands. I crawled over to him, not caring that the front of my jacket had stiffened with ice, and hugged him, rocking back and forth slowly, cooing quietly, as Byungjoo sobbed, horrible and raw and so sad and so bare.
And then, in a hoarse, whispered voice, he told me what had happened. What he had seen, the blood and the death and the hurt. What he had done. And I could only tell him I was there, that I wouldn't leave him, as we knelt in the cold, frozen solid, and so hopeless.
Why wasn't it me. Why. Why did you have to take him, and give him back with scars and nightmares that make him cry and get that look, that look of the hunted, in his eyes? Why not me. He's lived through so much.
I wish it was me.
I wish there was no war. I wish there was another way. Why isn't there another way? Is there only slaughtering each other, scarring people, ripping out their peace, for peace?
Peace. I just wish there was peace. I wish no one had to get hurt. I wish it was me instead of him. Oh, God, I wish he didn't have to go through that.
I wish he could sleep.
I wish he could be happy.
I will be unhappy, I will be tortured if he is not. I will make that trade, Lord.
Please.
Okay. Hi! And here is the last oneshot.
First anything of mine posted in 2014, 2 hours into the year!
Happy New Year everybody!
I was actually having a lot of trouble with this little prompt thingy, but I finally got it! I hope you guys liked it:)
On another note, I've started kinda planning a chartered fic similar to this, which is how I got the idea for this. Either Hanjoo or Navi (VIXX), I haven't decided yet. But it'll definitely be angst. But even if it gets written, I won't start it until probably, idk, late spring I think. So yeah. But I'll tell you guys in case you wanna read if but you probably won't so adjgjxnfisbfiskxnfkdkdfnfjsndnwhatevergnsjfbdjnd
Comment, please!
Have an amazing year:)
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