everybody is bruising
everybody is bruising
742, pg-13 (sunny/yonghwa, seohyun/yonghwa, sunny/jonghyun, seohyun/jonghyun)
nothing about the two of them is perfect.
It's not what she expects, but then again it never is.
She opens the door and her eyes flutter up and down for a moment, taking in every feature. The sharp jaw line, the toothy smile, the raven hair and darkening eyes. It reminds her of someone else who made her heart ache and the bones around it shatter. There's an exchange of greetings in between there but the way she closes the door behind him is urgent and the alcohol in the cheap box is abruptly the first priority.
(Neither of them know better, all they know is that it hurts and maybe, just maybe, they'll be lucky enough to numb it.)
He sits down on the couch and a memory tugs at the back of her mind,
My legs are too long for this couch.
Well, I'm sorry that I'm a significantly small person.
And it's random and it passes by like a sort of fluttering in her eardrum. She cradles the blood pumping organ inside of her chest for a minute and inhales while he exhales - the dislocated pulse in between them making it all more painful. She looks at him for a long time and considers turning off the lights because he'll be unrecognizable in the dark and all they'll be are kissing silhouettes - two sad people just trying to feel again.
He starts to look down at his calloused hands (hands that aren't meant to go anywhere near her) - but he grabs her wrist anyways. It isn't until the tips of his fingers brush her veins that he realizes that she's real - just as real as he is, and nothing about this an illusion. Memories suddenly whirl around him as well (and lungs collapse and come back together, but the breathing process is just never going to be the same.) It's this notion of the both of them trying to fill up spaces and not fitting. They're stubborn children who see that nothing about their bones are aligned or perfect, but they try to make it work anyways.
The effort is futile, like trying to hide one's self from a blizzard in the intruding, pale hand of winter.
Absentmindedly, he expects her to pull away and be shy like a familiar doe eyed girl he once knew. Instead, her hand stays there and her knuckles brush against the faint rhythm of a fading pulse into the background. He shudders and lets go, running a hand back through his hair. They stare at each other for a moment. She's standing right in front of him, looking down as he sinks into the couch piece by piece. Another memory could just rush on by with a gasp, a disaster that could cut her off at the knees and hazardously make her fall into his arms.
"I'm sorry," Is what Yonghwa decides to say first.
"Me too," Sunny replies. When she looks into his eyes she only sees herself, and she realizes they're the same people for that singular moment.
(For one time in a long time, she realizes she's not alone.)
And the conversation is:
I miss him.
I miss her.
Does he miss me?
Every minute. Does she miss me?
Every second.
"I'm sorry that it didn't work out for you two," Sunny leans back onto the couch. They're almost touching, the invisible barrier in between them like a sheet of static that threatens to hurt them both. Her knee is only a centimeter away and so is her elbow, but metaphorically speaking she feels herself drifting away. When there's a small brush by her ear she assumes it's his breathing.
Instinct tells her to create distance, the universe places her head against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry too," Yonghwa mumbles.
It is okay for us to not be okay?
I guess that's our only option.
"Remember when the four of us used to sneak out all the time?" Sunny giggles, a result of slight intoxication.
He laughs too, harder and harder until his ribs don't rattle.
"All the time."
Is it okay for me to still love him?
As much as it's okay for me to still love her.
But even if we lost them -
Yeah, I know Yonghwa. We still have each other.
And somewhere on a table, hidden underneath other tables is a perfectly printed out invitation:
You have been cordially invited to the Wedding of Lee Jonghyun and Seo Joohyun.