listen, love.
LISTEN, LOVE.
kai/luhan » pg-13 » au, angst » 5.5k
warnings: drinking, depression, lapslock, use of 2nd person pov
listen, love, you can't fix people.
notes: written for the lovely donawhalee !! ♥♥♥
i basically wrote this in one sitting and then edited it afterwards aldkjalsfad it's been a super long time since i wrote a fic like this, one i started and finished within a week instead of crying over it for days and weeks or even months hehe.
also, this is a very heavy fic, so if you aren't into heavy stuff, don't read this ;; also, just to make sure you understand: the point of view changes after every umbrella!!
(listen, love, sometimes you don't see a disaster coming.
the disaster might look beautiful at first. it might have the perfect smile, it might be intriguing - it might not look anything like a disaster at all. that's what makes some people so dangerous: they are chaos in disguise, but you'll only realize that when walking away from them has already become almost impossible. sometimes chaos is contagious, magnetic: sometimes other people's chaos will stick to your skin like it sticks to theirs, it will fill your lungs and destroy you slowly on the inside. it's okay if you can't recognize the disaster before it has already entered your life, but you must learn to walk away from it when the time comes, and you must be strong enough to do it, for your own sake.
believe me, dearest, i know he's beautiful in a tragic way, and turning your back on someone like that is difficult, but i need you to understand that unless you want to be engulfed by chaos, you must leave before it's too late. you are in danger of being swallowed by the hurricane that he is if you don't run away while you still can.)
you met him when the both of you were cast in reproduction of shakespeare's twelfth night. he played viola, you were duke orsino, and that's how you made friends with each other although he always said he didn't really make friends. he was fascinating to you, in the way he kept switching his style every day. one day he'd come to the practice wearing a snapback and a hoodie, the second he'd show up in a button-down and bow-tie, and on the third, he'd look like he just came from the runway. he was always alluring, fit every role he chose for himself (both on and off stage), and you couldn't help but fall.
his life smelled like cigarettes and tasted like margaritas and tequilas. he lived fast, always filling his life with all kinds of things so that he would never have to stop. when he was drunk, he talked a lot, often about shakespeare but sometimes about darkness and how afraid of it he was. i might not be someone you should be friends with, he told you one night when he took you to his place and offered you a bottle of soju and a cigarette. you took the alcohol and said you didn't smoke. i'm a mess, you see, he explained and lit his cigarette in the middle of his living room. i can live with that, you said. in retrospect, that was the wrong answer, but it felt right at the time, especially when you saw the way his eyes lit up right after the words had left you, like he had waited for someone to tell him that for years. he kissed you that night, and took you to bed.
you became an integral part of his life, and the further he pulled you into his world, the more obvious it became just how broken he was. sometimes he called you, drunk out of his mind, crying because everything hurt but he couldn't tell why, and although you didn't know how to help, you went over to his place and held him through the night, desperate to make it better somehow. it broke your heart how someone as enchanting as him could be so broken, seemingly beyond repair. you did your best to be there for him at all times because you thought that was what he needed - someone to come to him running whenever his monsters threatened to overwhelm him. gradually, however, you began to doubt if that was really what he needed, what the both of you needed.
you remember one particular morning when you found yourself beginning to question your life choices. it was past noon on a sunday morning, probably, when you woke up with a splitting headache. you forced yourself out of the bed, trying not to wake the other man sleeping in it, and shuffled into the kitchen, feeling indescribably horrible and utterly terrible. you rummaged the cupboards for some medicine and managed to find a packet that didn't look like a pill could kill you. you took a pill with some water and slumped into one of the chairs, too exhausted to travel back to the bedroom right away. you frowned at the dishes piling up on the table, the old magazines and unpaid bills, but ended up leaving them there anyway.
in your life, there had been a time when you hadn't woken up either with a hangover or still drunk every other morning, but in that moment, those days seemed very distant. your life had just become something that you didn't even know how to describe. when you thought about your life, only margaritas and tequilas and never-ending parties in shady live clubs came to mind, as well as some occasional productions and memorizing scripts, so you guessed that was probably that. that was what your life had become, and although it wasn't an entirely bad thing, it did make you pause and think every once in a while.
after gathering your strength for a few minutes, you pulled yourself up and begun your journey back to bed. once you made it into the bedroom, you wasted no time slipping under the covers and starting to beg yourself to fall back to sleep so that your headache would go away. an arm folded itself around your body, and you squeezed your eyes shut but leaned into the warmth. i feel like death, someone muttered right in your ear.
same here, you mumbled back, the words sending a faint wave of nausea through your body, which you fortunately managed to bite back without having to rush into the bathroom.
that can only mean we felt pretty damn alive last night, came the reply. you hummed in response and drifted back to sleep, distantly thinking maybe you were living your life wrong, after all.
now, months after that morning, your flat is empty, but you feel even emptier on the inside, and keep pacing around restlessly, a phone in your hand. you realize you're waiting for a catastrophe.
☂
(listen, love, you are in pain, even if you don't want to admit it out loud.
sometimes it hurts more, sometimes it hurts less, but nonetheless, you are a broken being in a body that looks unscathed on the surface. you have been hurt by many and you have hurt yourself, and i know it is not easy to live when you feel weighed down by your past and all your mistakes. sometimes you feel strong, sometimes so weak that you consider it a miracle you're still alive. even so, you have made it this far, even though sometimes it doesn't seem much of an achievement.
dearest, keep breathing. it will pass - everything will, and you will find a way to make it through.)
a night in seoul is never quiet. you sit by the dirty window of your small flat, which you fortunately never sold even when you technically moved out of it some time ago. there's an unlit cigarette between your fingers, and your free hand is stuck out the open window. the cold pitter-patter of rain grazes at the back of your palm as you curl your fingers in the cool night air, and you breathe slowly. you breathe in, you breathe out. slowly, you just breathe and think only about the oxygen running into your lungs and the carbon dioxide that escapes your lips. breathe in, breathe out. you listen to the sounds of your own breathing, hear the sounds of traffic but pay no attention to those. breathe in, breathe out.
you breathe to know you're alive. the rising and falling of your own chest is a comfort whenever you feel like the world is too big and you are too small, an insignificant little soul wandering lost among millions of others. breathe in, breathe out, you tell yourself when it all becomes too much. just breathe in and breathe out. it'll be alright, one day. probably.
it's been a week since you walked out. at the very least you had a place return to, although that does little to make you feel better. your bed is unmade as it always is and the dishes are piling up, too, and you wonder what your mother would say if she were there to see. she probably wouldn't like it. she'd nag, ask you why you're wasting your life like that, living like you're one with your messy apartment. how many days has it been since the last time you went out anyway? you bought food two days ago, does that count? you twirl the cigarette in your fingers, contemplate lighting it. you tell yourself you only smoke every now and then when you need to think, but in all honesty, nowadays you smoke all the time, even when you have nothing to think about; now breathing in and breathing out in puffs of smoke is simply your way of trying to calm down.
you light the cigarette and let it burn between your fingers for a few seconds before you bring it out of the window, wanting to see if the silent, gentle rain is going to put it out. it doesn't, for some reason. it's as if the droplets of water know to avoid the cigarette. you let go on a whim, and the cigarette falls. you light another one and start smoking.
it's not like you don't recognize your problem. for a long time, you've known there's something very wrong with you, but you've just found ways to forget about it. your survival mechanism has always been to drown the person you initially were, the person you were before the whole world became a bit too much for you. you have two faces, as do most people; you are an actor, but not only by profession. all the world's a stage, wrote shakespeare once upon a time, and those words are what you believe in. you find comfort in the quote, and feel safe knowing that you have a choice. in your life, you play the role of an actor whose name happens to be the same as your own, but that's the only thing the two of you have in common. when you play that role, you don't need to be the shattered luhan, you don't need to be the luhan who's afraid of too many things, the luhan who feels like there's nothing in his life that should keep himself interested in it. instead, you can be the intriguing luhan, the messy luhan, the luhan that never says no to a free drink, the luhan that smokes a pack or sometimes two a day, the luhan that dances on tables and flirts with bartenders.
with jongin, however, you've sometimes felt like the original luhan might not be such a hopeless case. that's a lot more than anyone else has managed to do for you in a very long time. and that's exactly why you never wanted to let him go.
☂
(listen, love, you can't save people.
i know he said he couldn't do without you, that he'd die if you weren't there, that if you were gone, he'd have nothing left, and that with you he feels more like himself than he has in years, but have you ever stopped to listen to yourself? when you run to him in the middle of the night, terrified because he called and said he needed help, have you ever stopped to feel the lump in your throat? or when you go drinking with him and you both end up so drunk you can barely see straight, and although you are so drunk that nothing really matters, there's still that tiny nagging terror at the back of your head (what if something happens to us?), have you ever stopped to remember the time when you said you'd never drink to forget?
i know you love him, of course i do, and i know he loves you too, but dearest, love is no magic fix to redeem a lost soul. you see, there's a chance that while struggling to fix someone you love, you might break yourself in the process.)
it's been a week and two days, and you still can't shake him off your mind.
the train is packed with people, just like it always is at this time of day. you sit pressed against the window, right next to a girl who's talking to a boy sitting opposite to her. they're both smiling shyly, giggling at everything the other one says, and on a normal day, it would make you smile because everything about them whispers look, we are in love and one day we might be brave enough to say it out loud. today, however, is not a normal day (you've been thinking about him all day), so you don't smile. you turn up the volume of your headphones and drown the voices, and do your best to stare into the darkness on the other side of the window, past the reflection of the happy not-quite-a-couple-yet and your own tired face. the boy who sits opposite to you is doing the same thing as you, although he keeps stealing somewhat doleful glances at the girl who doesn't even notice him. you wonder if there's a story behind them, and for a while you entertain yourself by imagining a movie starring the three strangers. however, when you realize what you're doing, you stop right away - it's what he always used to do, whisper stories of total strangers in your ears on crowded trains and buses, at railway stations and nightclubs. it startles you that the scenes you make up inside your head are told with his voice, and the voice makes you shudder. you turn up the volume even more until you can't hear your own thoughts.
it's been a long, weary day, but the hardest part is yet to come. you step out of the train at your stop and make your way towards your neighborhood, deciding to go get some groceries before heading home. the tiny little convenience store at the corner of the street feels strange today, although you've gone there almost every day for the past two years. as you make your way through the store, you constantly have to remind yourself not to buy for two anymore. don't buy orange juice, you tell yourself. you hate it, so there's no one to drink it anyway. you can buy green tea instead of black since there's no one to complain about it.
you keep giving yourself mental instructions until you finally make it to the cashier, pay, pack and leave as fast as you can, feeling strangely claustrophobic in the tiny grocery store. you know that the girl at the cashier remembers you, remembers him, and the two of you together. she remembers, because she greets you when you're paying, asks about your day, and on a normal day you'd welcome the brief conversation. today, it only reminds you of how everything in your life has changed yet how the whole world is still spinning around, time drags by and people go on with their own lives.
it usually takes five minutes to walk home from the store but today, it takes ten. you are slow on purpose, refusing to hurry even though it starts to rain when you're halfway home. you shiver in the cold, disliking the feeling of chilly november rain trickling on your cheeks and neck, but somehow even that is better than rushing into the safety of your home. the closer you get, the more anxious you become; somehow it doesn't feel like returning home.
in the staircase, the echo of your footsteps is almost foreshadowing. you climb stairs at crawling speed, as slow as you can, but it still isn't enough, because eventually you do reach your door. you spend too much time looking for your keys, hands shaking as you fit them in the keyhole and fumble the door open. stepping into the apartment requires another moment of preparing yourself for the inevitable (it's been a week but it's still so hard), and so you stand at the doorway, eyes closed, sucking in a deep breath.
you force yourself not to look around as you walk through the place, not bothering to take your shoes off (it's a bad habit, and you know who you got it from, but you refuse to think about it). you take the groceries out of the shopping bag swiftly, tossing them on the table without a care. it's only when your hand finds a pack of cigarettes that you freeze. you don't smoke, but for a certain reason you love the scent of a person who has just finished a cigarette. the mixture of bitingly cold night air and the fresh scent of nicotine is something comforting to you - it reminds you of a lot of things. the pack of cigarettes you bought is the exactly same kind that he used to smoke on the balcony. you remember how he'd hold a cigarette between his fingers, lean on the rail and look up at the sky, eyeing the lights of airplanes up in the dark sky. you remember how he'd make wishes on those lights, as if they were shooting stars instead, and how he'd never tell you what he wished for (and how over time you started to doubt he never even wished for anything at all because he had nothing he wanted that much).
the apartment you have returned to looks the same as it was a week ago, but you know that if you took a closer look, you'd find his belongings gone. there would be no sheets on the couch where he slept for the past month, nor would there be his jacket in the coat racket.
something snaps.
☂
(listen, love, he can't save you, and you shouldn't ask him to.
i know you feel like you can't do it without him, like you'll die if he isn't there, like you'll have nothing left if he goes way, like you can only find the you you lost along the way if he's with you, but dearest, do you understand what you're doing? do you understand that by depending on him time and time again, begging him to be there for you, to never let you go, you are turning him into another you, someone who needs another person to stand upright? do you remember who he was before you swallowed him into the eye of your storm?
you need to understand that you are strong enough to get out of bed every morning, strong enough to walk through every day, and strong enough to make it back to your bed every night. if you simplify things, that is what living is: waking up, living a bit, and going back to sleep. and you can do that. you can live. what you need is not someone to hold you at night, what you need is not someone to make sure you have food in your fridge, what you need is not someone to always keep their phone on in case you stumble and need someone to pick you up.
and i know you love him, and i know he loves you, and i know that he makes you feel better, even if it's just for a moment, but temporary relief is not what you need. what you need, sweetheart, is someone who will teach you to do those things for yourself.)
sometimes you hate him for leaving you behind. how could he, when he promised he would always be there? how could he, when he was the only one who had managed to make it easier for you to breathe in a dark room? how could he, when you loved him so much? but you know why he did it, if you let yourself be rational. you have never been an easy person to be around, you have always had the uncanny ability to break things, break people. you don't want to do that, and so you always push everyone away at first, but if they refuse to leave, if they keep coming back, you end up reeling them in, into your disaster, and absorb them and their light so that your darkness will be easier to deal with.
you lie in your bed, the lights are on, you can hear the rain that's growing stronger. you try to remember to breathe because that's the key. you remember how he used to hold you and breathe with you, arms tight around you when you felt like you would fall into pieces if he let go. breathe, he'd tell you, just breathe. inhale, exhale. inhale, exhale. slowly. you won't run out of air, so just breathe slow. inhale, exhale.
he told you he couldn't help you. you thought it meant he was leaving you, so you left first. when he mentioned psychologists, professional help, someone who could help you more than i ever could, you took it as a threat. i'm tired of you, you thought he said. tired of your shit, tired of the mess you are, tired of everything. you are crazy, and i don't want to deal with a crazy person.
in retrospect, that probably, no, definitely isn't what he meant at all, because when you turned your back on him, marched out of the apartment and headed for the nearest bar to fill your head with alcohol, he kept calling you all night, left countless of voice messages, text messages, called all your friends, went searching around for you. he wasn't trying to tell you he didn't love you anymore, he didn't mean to threaten you with a goodbye. he wanted to help, like he always did, but you just didn't understand it.
that's how you distanced yourself from him, tried to prove (him? yourself?) that you would be fine without him. you went back to your old way of living, back to those hazy nights and strange days when nothing quite mattered. he waited for you at home, time and time again, and tried to make you stop and realize that what you were doing wasn't right. you heard those words as yet another threat and kept going. you don't know why you did it when you were so terrified of him leaving you for real. days went by and you started to wish you could stop but you couldn't, not when you always came back home to a dark apartment, silence, and a closed bedroom door. maybe a part of you thought that eventually, if only you went far enough, he would realize you really need him and only him and abandon all those thoughts about sending you to a doctor instead. now you realize your logic was always twisted and incorrect, you realize that you were wrong, selfish and naive, thought that the world revolved around you and your darkness and you had the right to use anyone who could offer you a tiny bit of comfort and sympathy. you're beginning to realize that maybe he was right all along: maybe you do need help - just not his.
☂
(listen, love, i know that letting go of him terrifies you.
you are used to waking up at night, to him calling you in tears, saying he can't breathe because the room is so dark, too dark, because all his monsters are hiding there, and he can't close his eyes because if he does, the monsters will choke him to death. even after he moved in with you, the nightmares wouldn't subside, and sometimes you still woke up to find him crying in the corner of the bedroom because the monsters were still there although he always thought having you near would make them go away. you are used to running around the city looking for him, searching bars and clubs, a horrible fear sitting at the bottom of your stomach. you are used to many scary things.
and i know you do love him, you love him so much that you would do anything to help him, you would try to chase away monsters you can't even see for the rest of your life if it meant he could sleep in peace, but darling, you have tried. you have tried, but love is not what is going to mend scars as deep as his.)
the smoke stings. you didn't think it would because smoking always looked so effortless and calming when he'd leisurely exhale blue clouds, his arms securely around you as he mumbled stories about constellations in your ear although all you could see in the sky were airplanes. make a wish, he'd tell you, and although you thought you knew better, you always obliged, indulging his childish antics. when he'd ask you what you wished for, you wouldn't tell him, but you always had a feeling he knew anyway.
now there are no airplanes in sight, your throat burns and your lungs hurt, and your eyes are filled with smoke-induced tears. still, it's somewhat alright, that burn. the more you smoke, lighting up another cigarette right after you've finished the first one, it gets easier, and the smoke creeps down your trachea more inconspicuously. you stop coughing, but the tears won't disappear from your eyes, they neither fall nor go back to wherever they came from. instead, they cling to your eyes, stubbornly indecisive, and you do nothing to wipe them away.
you remember a lot. you remember driving through the city in the middle of the night, listening to obnoxious radio hits and singing along as if you were the only people still alive in the world. you remember trying to cook a dinner together but realizing the dish was too advanced for your skills and ending up at mcdonald's instead, bickering over who would have to scrub the burnt remains of your almost-dinner off your frying pan. you remember pillow fights and pillow talks, falling in love and making love, pointing at the airplanes in the sky and gluing plastic stars on the ceiling. you remember languid kisses, lazy ones on sunday mornings, needy ones on friday nights, stolen ones on wednesday afternoons, and hugs and intertwined fingers in between. you remember a lot, too much yet still not enough.
you hardly remember the fights or the bad times, or so you fool yourself into thinking. you'd rather forget about nights spent sitting on the couch, hugging a cushion to your chest and trying not to fall asleep as you waited for him to come home. you remember a lot of yelling, too: him yelling at you and you yelling at him. you remember the couch that turned into his bed because you were petty and wouldn't let him enter your bedroom if you smelled alcohol in his breath. you remember days when you didn't see him at all, you remember wondering if he even lived with you anymore. you remember cold silences and crying in the shower because you were so in love and it hurt so much, but it still wasn't enough, hadn't been enough. wouldn't be enough, perhaps.
you wish you didn't remember anything - not the fights, not the kisses, not the yelling, not the sweet whispers. you wish every empty space in your home and in your life didn't glare at you today, you wish you didn't know which books are missing from the bookshelf now, you wish you couldn't remember that you used to share this apartment, this life, with someone else. a part of you wishes you could start over, turn back time, and walk away when he approached you after that script reading session. you wish you could undo it all now that you know it was never meant to be.
four cigarettes later, you feel like you're choking on air, drowning in it. it's so very cloudy inside your head, a dull ache hidden somewhere in the mist, faint pulses of pain spreading out with every empty thump of your heart. you eye the remaining sixteen cigarettes in the pack, knowing your lungs can't take any more. you take out five, light them all at once and put them in the ashtray. you light five more, and then the remaining six, and watch as the cigarettes slowly burn out in the ashtray, disappearing uselessly without fulfilling their purpose of spreading their smokey fingers in someone's lungs.
you close your eyes and wrap your arms around yourself, not making a move to go back in even though the november is cold and the balcony floor is even colder. you think about happier times, allow yourself to drown yourself in nostalgia for a moment and wallow in the memory of his arms, his voice, his lips travelling down your neck. you tell yourself it's going to get better, you are going to get through this, even smoking stops hurting your lungs once you get used to it, but it doesn't quite make you feel any stronger, or less guilty.
because what you are afraid, after all, isn't loneliness. it isn't the emptiness of the apartment that is scary to you. instead, the scary part is not knowing where he might be now, what he's doing, if he's alright. you are terrified of the things he might do without you there to anchor him, and although you've spent years trying to save him in vain, you still feel like you're giving up without even putting up a fight.
you take out the phone in your pocket and hesitate for a long while before you do what you should have done a long time ago.
(listen, love, one day you will understand, and so will he.
you did the right thing, even if you feel like you abandoned him, pushed him to someone else so that you wouldn't have to clean up the mess. believe me, you did well.)
☂
(listen, love, you will be alright.
over time, you will learn to breathe in dark rooms and leave the house without disguising yourself as someone else. you will get through several weeks without wanting to drown yourself and your memories in liquor. you will learn to live again, as yourself. it won't be easy, however, but you will make it through. believe me.
you do not need to suck air out of another person in order to breathe, sweetheart. you have your own lungs, and there is air even in dark rooms, and even at night: all you need is to breathe in, and breathe out.)
you get a call from an unknown number. and another one, and another one. your phone keeps ringing every few hours for the next couple of days. on tuesday, the curiosity finally gets the better of you, and you pick it up.
your initial reaction is anger. you snap at the poor man (doctor kim joonmyun, or something like that) who explains that he has a friend who is very worried about you. however, as he keeps talking in a strangely calm voice even though you've just called him horrible names and accused him of invading your privacy, you find your anger dissipating, mostly because yelling is tiring but also because you start to wonder if you even have a reason to be mad. i wish i could help you, you remember jongin telling you, time after time when you were either drunk or scared witless by invisible demons. i have this friend who could help you. he's a doctor, and...
those words always used to start a fight. now, though, you find yourself too tired to even get truly angry anymore. you haven't slept a wink for a week despite having kept all lights on in your flat, and you think that you've reached your limit. i'm really tired, you say, although it sounds more like a whisper. just really, really tired. tired of so many things.
i can help you, if you'll just let me, the doctor says earnestly. jongin always told you he couldn't help you, didn't have the kind of band-aids your wounds needed although he wished he did, and that's why you find a part of yourself liking the sound the doctor's words.
(listen, love, there's a heart beating in your chest. do you hear it? do you understand how hard it's working just to keep you alive? dearest, no hurricane is eternal; even the strongest spring storm will fade away over time, and so will your inner turmoil. trust me, i know.)
kai/luhan » pg-13 » au, angst » 5.5k
warnings: drinking, depression, lapslock, use of 2nd person pov
listen, love, you can't fix people.
notes: written for the lovely donawhalee !! ♥♥♥
i basically wrote this in one sitting and then edited it afterwards aldkjalsfad it's been a super long time since i wrote a fic like this, one i started and finished within a week instead of crying over it for days and weeks or even months hehe.
also, this is a very heavy fic, so if you aren't into heavy stuff, don't read this ;; also, just to make sure you understand: the point of view changes after every umbrella!!
(listen, love, sometimes you don't see a disaster coming.
the disaster might look beautiful at first. it might have the perfect smile, it might be intriguing - it might not look anything like a disaster at all. that's what makes some people so dangerous: they are chaos in disguise, but you'll only realize that when walking away from them has already become almost impossible. sometimes chaos is contagious, magnetic: sometimes other people's chaos will stick to your skin like it sticks to theirs, it will fill your lungs and destroy you slowly on the inside. it's okay if you can't recognize the disaster before it has already entered your life, but you must learn to walk away from it when the time comes, and you must be strong enough to do it, for your own sake.
believe me, dearest, i know he's beautiful in a tragic way, and turning your back on someone like that is difficult, but i need you to understand that unless you want to be engulfed by chaos, you must leave before it's too late. you are in danger of being swallowed by the hurricane that he is if you don't run away while you still can.)
you met him when the both of you were cast in reproduction of shakespeare's twelfth night. he played viola, you were duke orsino, and that's how you made friends with each other although he always said he didn't really make friends. he was fascinating to you, in the way he kept switching his style every day. one day he'd come to the practice wearing a snapback and a hoodie, the second he'd show up in a button-down and bow-tie, and on the third, he'd look like he just came from the runway. he was always alluring, fit every role he chose for himself (both on and off stage), and you couldn't help but fall.
his life smelled like cigarettes and tasted like margaritas and tequilas. he lived fast, always filling his life with all kinds of things so that he would never have to stop. when he was drunk, he talked a lot, often about shakespeare but sometimes about darkness and how afraid of it he was. i might not be someone you should be friends with, he told you one night when he took you to his place and offered you a bottle of soju and a cigarette. you took the alcohol and said you didn't smoke. i'm a mess, you see, he explained and lit his cigarette in the middle of his living room. i can live with that, you said. in retrospect, that was the wrong answer, but it felt right at the time, especially when you saw the way his eyes lit up right after the words had left you, like he had waited for someone to tell him that for years. he kissed you that night, and took you to bed.
you became an integral part of his life, and the further he pulled you into his world, the more obvious it became just how broken he was. sometimes he called you, drunk out of his mind, crying because everything hurt but he couldn't tell why, and although you didn't know how to help, you went over to his place and held him through the night, desperate to make it better somehow. it broke your heart how someone as enchanting as him could be so broken, seemingly beyond repair. you did your best to be there for him at all times because you thought that was what he needed - someone to come to him running whenever his monsters threatened to overwhelm him. gradually, however, you began to doubt if that was really what he needed, what the both of you needed.
you remember one particular morning when you found yourself beginning to question your life choices. it was past noon on a sunday morning, probably, when you woke up with a splitting headache. you forced yourself out of the bed, trying not to wake the other man sleeping in it, and shuffled into the kitchen, feeling indescribably horrible and utterly terrible. you rummaged the cupboards for some medicine and managed to find a packet that didn't look like a pill could kill you. you took a pill with some water and slumped into one of the chairs, too exhausted to travel back to the bedroom right away. you frowned at the dishes piling up on the table, the old magazines and unpaid bills, but ended up leaving them there anyway.
in your life, there had been a time when you hadn't woken up either with a hangover or still drunk every other morning, but in that moment, those days seemed very distant. your life had just become something that you didn't even know how to describe. when you thought about your life, only margaritas and tequilas and never-ending parties in shady live clubs came to mind, as well as some occasional productions and memorizing scripts, so you guessed that was probably that. that was what your life had become, and although it wasn't an entirely bad thing, it did make you pause and think every once in a while.
after gathering your strength for a few minutes, you pulled yourself up and begun your journey back to bed. once you made it into the bedroom, you wasted no time slipping under the covers and starting to beg yourself to fall back to sleep so that your headache would go away. an arm folded itself around your body, and you squeezed your eyes shut but leaned into the warmth. i feel like death, someone muttered right in your ear.
same here, you mumbled back, the words sending a faint wave of nausea through your body, which you fortunately managed to bite back without having to rush into the bathroom.
that can only mean we felt pretty damn alive last night, came the reply. you hummed in response and drifted back to sleep, distantly thinking maybe you were living your life wrong, after all.
now, months after that morning, your flat is empty, but you feel even emptier on the inside, and keep pacing around restlessly, a phone in your hand. you realize you're waiting for a catastrophe.
☂
(listen, love, you are in pain, even if you don't want to admit it out loud.
sometimes it hurts more, sometimes it hurts less, but nonetheless, you are a broken being in a body that looks unscathed on the surface. you have been hurt by many and you have hurt yourself, and i know it is not easy to live when you feel weighed down by your past and all your mistakes. sometimes you feel strong, sometimes so weak that you consider it a miracle you're still alive. even so, you have made it this far, even though sometimes it doesn't seem much of an achievement.
dearest, keep breathing. it will pass - everything will, and you will find a way to make it through.)
a night in seoul is never quiet. you sit by the dirty window of your small flat, which you fortunately never sold even when you technically moved out of it some time ago. there's an unlit cigarette between your fingers, and your free hand is stuck out the open window. the cold pitter-patter of rain grazes at the back of your palm as you curl your fingers in the cool night air, and you breathe slowly. you breathe in, you breathe out. slowly, you just breathe and think only about the oxygen running into your lungs and the carbon dioxide that escapes your lips. breathe in, breathe out. you listen to the sounds of your own breathing, hear the sounds of traffic but pay no attention to those. breathe in, breathe out.
you breathe to know you're alive. the rising and falling of your own chest is a comfort whenever you feel like the world is too big and you are too small, an insignificant little soul wandering lost among millions of others. breathe in, breathe out, you tell yourself when it all becomes too much. just breathe in and breathe out. it'll be alright, one day. probably.
it's been a week since you walked out. at the very least you had a place return to, although that does little to make you feel better. your bed is unmade as it always is and the dishes are piling up, too, and you wonder what your mother would say if she were there to see. she probably wouldn't like it. she'd nag, ask you why you're wasting your life like that, living like you're one with your messy apartment. how many days has it been since the last time you went out anyway? you bought food two days ago, does that count? you twirl the cigarette in your fingers, contemplate lighting it. you tell yourself you only smoke every now and then when you need to think, but in all honesty, nowadays you smoke all the time, even when you have nothing to think about; now breathing in and breathing out in puffs of smoke is simply your way of trying to calm down.
you light the cigarette and let it burn between your fingers for a few seconds before you bring it out of the window, wanting to see if the silent, gentle rain is going to put it out. it doesn't, for some reason. it's as if the droplets of water know to avoid the cigarette. you let go on a whim, and the cigarette falls. you light another one and start smoking.
it's not like you don't recognize your problem. for a long time, you've known there's something very wrong with you, but you've just found ways to forget about it. your survival mechanism has always been to drown the person you initially were, the person you were before the whole world became a bit too much for you. you have two faces, as do most people; you are an actor, but not only by profession. all the world's a stage, wrote shakespeare once upon a time, and those words are what you believe in. you find comfort in the quote, and feel safe knowing that you have a choice. in your life, you play the role of an actor whose name happens to be the same as your own, but that's the only thing the two of you have in common. when you play that role, you don't need to be the shattered luhan, you don't need to be the luhan who's afraid of too many things, the luhan who feels like there's nothing in his life that should keep himself interested in it. instead, you can be the intriguing luhan, the messy luhan, the luhan that never says no to a free drink, the luhan that smokes a pack or sometimes two a day, the luhan that dances on tables and flirts with bartenders.
with jongin, however, you've sometimes felt like the original luhan might not be such a hopeless case. that's a lot more than anyone else has managed to do for you in a very long time. and that's exactly why you never wanted to let him go.
☂
(listen, love, you can't save people.
i know he said he couldn't do without you, that he'd die if you weren't there, that if you were gone, he'd have nothing left, and that with you he feels more like himself than he has in years, but have you ever stopped to listen to yourself? when you run to him in the middle of the night, terrified because he called and said he needed help, have you ever stopped to feel the lump in your throat? or when you go drinking with him and you both end up so drunk you can barely see straight, and although you are so drunk that nothing really matters, there's still that tiny nagging terror at the back of your head (what if something happens to us?), have you ever stopped to remember the time when you said you'd never drink to forget?
i know you love him, of course i do, and i know he loves you too, but dearest, love is no magic fix to redeem a lost soul. you see, there's a chance that while struggling to fix someone you love, you might break yourself in the process.)
it's been a week and two days, and you still can't shake him off your mind.
the train is packed with people, just like it always is at this time of day. you sit pressed against the window, right next to a girl who's talking to a boy sitting opposite to her. they're both smiling shyly, giggling at everything the other one says, and on a normal day, it would make you smile because everything about them whispers look, we are in love and one day we might be brave enough to say it out loud. today, however, is not a normal day (you've been thinking about him all day), so you don't smile. you turn up the volume of your headphones and drown the voices, and do your best to stare into the darkness on the other side of the window, past the reflection of the happy not-quite-a-couple-yet and your own tired face. the boy who sits opposite to you is doing the same thing as you, although he keeps stealing somewhat doleful glances at the girl who doesn't even notice him. you wonder if there's a story behind them, and for a while you entertain yourself by imagining a movie starring the three strangers. however, when you realize what you're doing, you stop right away - it's what he always used to do, whisper stories of total strangers in your ears on crowded trains and buses, at railway stations and nightclubs. it startles you that the scenes you make up inside your head are told with his voice, and the voice makes you shudder. you turn up the volume even more until you can't hear your own thoughts.
it's been a long, weary day, but the hardest part is yet to come. you step out of the train at your stop and make your way towards your neighborhood, deciding to go get some groceries before heading home. the tiny little convenience store at the corner of the street feels strange today, although you've gone there almost every day for the past two years. as you make your way through the store, you constantly have to remind yourself not to buy for two anymore. don't buy orange juice, you tell yourself. you hate it, so there's no one to drink it anyway. you can buy green tea instead of black since there's no one to complain about it.
you keep giving yourself mental instructions until you finally make it to the cashier, pay, pack and leave as fast as you can, feeling strangely claustrophobic in the tiny grocery store. you know that the girl at the cashier remembers you, remembers him, and the two of you together. she remembers, because she greets you when you're paying, asks about your day, and on a normal day you'd welcome the brief conversation. today, it only reminds you of how everything in your life has changed yet how the whole world is still spinning around, time drags by and people go on with their own lives.
it usually takes five minutes to walk home from the store but today, it takes ten. you are slow on purpose, refusing to hurry even though it starts to rain when you're halfway home. you shiver in the cold, disliking the feeling of chilly november rain trickling on your cheeks and neck, but somehow even that is better than rushing into the safety of your home. the closer you get, the more anxious you become; somehow it doesn't feel like returning home.
in the staircase, the echo of your footsteps is almost foreshadowing. you climb stairs at crawling speed, as slow as you can, but it still isn't enough, because eventually you do reach your door. you spend too much time looking for your keys, hands shaking as you fit them in the keyhole and fumble the door open. stepping into the apartment requires another moment of preparing yourself for the inevitable (it's been a week but it's still so hard), and so you stand at the doorway, eyes closed, sucking in a deep breath.
you force yourself not to look around as you walk through the place, not bothering to take your shoes off (it's a bad habit, and you know who you got it from, but you refuse to think about it). you take the groceries out of the shopping bag swiftly, tossing them on the table without a care. it's only when your hand finds a pack of cigarettes that you freeze. you don't smoke, but for a certain reason you love the scent of a person who has just finished a cigarette. the mixture of bitingly cold night air and the fresh scent of nicotine is something comforting to you - it reminds you of a lot of things. the pack of cigarettes you bought is the exactly same kind that he used to smoke on the balcony. you remember how he'd hold a cigarette between his fingers, lean on the rail and look up at the sky, eyeing the lights of airplanes up in the dark sky. you remember how he'd make wishes on those lights, as if they were shooting stars instead, and how he'd never tell you what he wished for (and how over time you started to doubt he never even wished for anything at all because he had nothing he wanted that much).
the apartment you have returned to looks the same as it was a week ago, but you know that if you took a closer look, you'd find his belongings gone. there would be no sheets on the couch where he slept for the past month, nor would there be his jacket in the coat racket.
something snaps.
☂
(listen, love, he can't save you, and you shouldn't ask him to.
i know you feel like you can't do it without him, like you'll die if he isn't there, like you'll have nothing left if he goes way, like you can only find the you you lost along the way if he's with you, but dearest, do you understand what you're doing? do you understand that by depending on him time and time again, begging him to be there for you, to never let you go, you are turning him into another you, someone who needs another person to stand upright? do you remember who he was before you swallowed him into the eye of your storm?
you need to understand that you are strong enough to get out of bed every morning, strong enough to walk through every day, and strong enough to make it back to your bed every night. if you simplify things, that is what living is: waking up, living a bit, and going back to sleep. and you can do that. you can live. what you need is not someone to hold you at night, what you need is not someone to make sure you have food in your fridge, what you need is not someone to always keep their phone on in case you stumble and need someone to pick you up.
and i know you love him, and i know he loves you, and i know that he makes you feel better, even if it's just for a moment, but temporary relief is not what you need. what you need, sweetheart, is someone who will teach you to do those things for yourself.)
sometimes you hate him for leaving you behind. how could he, when he promised he would always be there? how could he, when he was the only one who had managed to make it easier for you to breathe in a dark room? how could he, when you loved him so much? but you know why he did it, if you let yourself be rational. you have never been an easy person to be around, you have always had the uncanny ability to break things, break people. you don't want to do that, and so you always push everyone away at first, but if they refuse to leave, if they keep coming back, you end up reeling them in, into your disaster, and absorb them and their light so that your darkness will be easier to deal with.
you lie in your bed, the lights are on, you can hear the rain that's growing stronger. you try to remember to breathe because that's the key. you remember how he used to hold you and breathe with you, arms tight around you when you felt like you would fall into pieces if he let go. breathe, he'd tell you, just breathe. inhale, exhale. inhale, exhale. slowly. you won't run out of air, so just breathe slow. inhale, exhale.
he told you he couldn't help you. you thought it meant he was leaving you, so you left first. when he mentioned psychologists, professional help, someone who could help you more than i ever could, you took it as a threat. i'm tired of you, you thought he said. tired of your shit, tired of the mess you are, tired of everything. you are crazy, and i don't want to deal with a crazy person.
in retrospect, that probably, no, definitely isn't what he meant at all, because when you turned your back on him, marched out of the apartment and headed for the nearest bar to fill your head with alcohol, he kept calling you all night, left countless of voice messages, text messages, called all your friends, went searching around for you. he wasn't trying to tell you he didn't love you anymore, he didn't mean to threaten you with a goodbye. he wanted to help, like he always did, but you just didn't understand it.
that's how you distanced yourself from him, tried to prove (him? yourself?) that you would be fine without him. you went back to your old way of living, back to those hazy nights and strange days when nothing quite mattered. he waited for you at home, time and time again, and tried to make you stop and realize that what you were doing wasn't right. you heard those words as yet another threat and kept going. you don't know why you did it when you were so terrified of him leaving you for real. days went by and you started to wish you could stop but you couldn't, not when you always came back home to a dark apartment, silence, and a closed bedroom door. maybe a part of you thought that eventually, if only you went far enough, he would realize you really need him and only him and abandon all those thoughts about sending you to a doctor instead. now you realize your logic was always twisted and incorrect, you realize that you were wrong, selfish and naive, thought that the world revolved around you and your darkness and you had the right to use anyone who could offer you a tiny bit of comfort and sympathy. you're beginning to realize that maybe he was right all along: maybe you do need help - just not his.
☂
(listen, love, i know that letting go of him terrifies you.
you are used to waking up at night, to him calling you in tears, saying he can't breathe because the room is so dark, too dark, because all his monsters are hiding there, and he can't close his eyes because if he does, the monsters will choke him to death. even after he moved in with you, the nightmares wouldn't subside, and sometimes you still woke up to find him crying in the corner of the bedroom because the monsters were still there although he always thought having you near would make them go away. you are used to running around the city looking for him, searching bars and clubs, a horrible fear sitting at the bottom of your stomach. you are used to many scary things.
and i know you do love him, you love him so much that you would do anything to help him, you would try to chase away monsters you can't even see for the rest of your life if it meant he could sleep in peace, but darling, you have tried. you have tried, but love is not what is going to mend scars as deep as his.)
the smoke stings. you didn't think it would because smoking always looked so effortless and calming when he'd leisurely exhale blue clouds, his arms securely around you as he mumbled stories about constellations in your ear although all you could see in the sky were airplanes. make a wish, he'd tell you, and although you thought you knew better, you always obliged, indulging his childish antics. when he'd ask you what you wished for, you wouldn't tell him, but you always had a feeling he knew anyway.
now there are no airplanes in sight, your throat burns and your lungs hurt, and your eyes are filled with smoke-induced tears. still, it's somewhat alright, that burn. the more you smoke, lighting up another cigarette right after you've finished the first one, it gets easier, and the smoke creeps down your trachea more inconspicuously. you stop coughing, but the tears won't disappear from your eyes, they neither fall nor go back to wherever they came from. instead, they cling to your eyes, stubbornly indecisive, and you do nothing to wipe them away.
you remember a lot. you remember driving through the city in the middle of the night, listening to obnoxious radio hits and singing along as if you were the only people still alive in the world. you remember trying to cook a dinner together but realizing the dish was too advanced for your skills and ending up at mcdonald's instead, bickering over who would have to scrub the burnt remains of your almost-dinner off your frying pan. you remember pillow fights and pillow talks, falling in love and making love, pointing at the airplanes in the sky and gluing plastic stars on the ceiling. you remember languid kisses, lazy ones on sunday mornings, needy ones on friday nights, stolen ones on wednesday afternoons, and hugs and intertwined fingers in between. you remember a lot, too much yet still not enough.
you hardly remember the fights or the bad times, or so you fool yourself into thinking. you'd rather forget about nights spent sitting on the couch, hugging a cushion to your chest and trying not to fall asleep as you waited for him to come home. you remember a lot of yelling, too: him yelling at you and you yelling at him. you remember the couch that turned into his bed because you were petty and wouldn't let him enter your bedroom if you smelled alcohol in his breath. you remember days when you didn't see him at all, you remember wondering if he even lived with you anymore. you remember cold silences and crying in the shower because you were so in love and it hurt so much, but it still wasn't enough, hadn't been enough. wouldn't be enough, perhaps.
you wish you didn't remember anything - not the fights, not the kisses, not the yelling, not the sweet whispers. you wish every empty space in your home and in your life didn't glare at you today, you wish you didn't know which books are missing from the bookshelf now, you wish you couldn't remember that you used to share this apartment, this life, with someone else. a part of you wishes you could start over, turn back time, and walk away when he approached you after that script reading session. you wish you could undo it all now that you know it was never meant to be.
four cigarettes later, you feel like you're choking on air, drowning in it. it's so very cloudy inside your head, a dull ache hidden somewhere in the mist, faint pulses of pain spreading out with every empty thump of your heart. you eye the remaining sixteen cigarettes in the pack, knowing your lungs can't take any more. you take out five, light them all at once and put them in the ashtray. you light five more, and then the remaining six, and watch as the cigarettes slowly burn out in the ashtray, disappearing uselessly without fulfilling their purpose of spreading their smokey fingers in someone's lungs.
you close your eyes and wrap your arms around yourself, not making a move to go back in even though the november is cold and the balcony floor is even colder. you think about happier times, allow yourself to drown yourself in nostalgia for a moment and wallow in the memory of his arms, his voice, his lips travelling down your neck. you tell yourself it's going to get better, you are going to get through this, even smoking stops hurting your lungs once you get used to it, but it doesn't quite make you feel any stronger, or less guilty.
because what you are afraid, after all, isn't loneliness. it isn't the emptiness of the apartment that is scary to you. instead, the scary part is not knowing where he might be now, what he's doing, if he's alright. you are terrified of the things he might do without you there to anchor him, and although you've spent years trying to save him in vain, you still feel like you're giving up without even putting up a fight.
you take out the phone in your pocket and hesitate for a long while before you do what you should have done a long time ago.
(listen, love, one day you will understand, and so will he.
you did the right thing, even if you feel like you abandoned him, pushed him to someone else so that you wouldn't have to clean up the mess. believe me, you did well.)
☂
(listen, love, you will be alright.
over time, you will learn to breathe in dark rooms and leave the house without disguising yourself as someone else. you will get through several weeks without wanting to drown yourself and your memories in liquor. you will learn to live again, as yourself. it won't be easy, however, but you will make it through. believe me.
you do not need to suck air out of another person in order to breathe, sweetheart. you have your own lungs, and there is air even in dark rooms, and even at night: all you need is to breathe in, and breathe out.)
you get a call from an unknown number. and another one, and another one. your phone keeps ringing every few hours for the next couple of days. on tuesday, the curiosity finally gets the better of you, and you pick it up.
your initial reaction is anger. you snap at the poor man (doctor kim joonmyun, or something like that) who explains that he has a friend who is very worried about you. however, as he keeps talking in a strangely calm voice even though you've just called him horrible names and accused him of invading your privacy, you find your anger dissipating, mostly because yelling is tiring but also because you start to wonder if you even have a reason to be mad. i wish i could help you, you remember jongin telling you, time after time when you were either drunk or scared witless by invisible demons. i have this friend who could help you. he's a doctor, and...
those words always used to start a fight. now, though, you find yourself too tired to even get truly angry anymore. you haven't slept a wink for a week despite having kept all lights on in your flat, and you think that you've reached your limit. i'm really tired, you say, although it sounds more like a whisper. just really, really tired. tired of so many things.
i can help you, if you'll just let me, the doctor says earnestly. jongin always told you he couldn't help you, didn't have the kind of band-aids your wounds needed although he wished he did, and that's why you find a part of yourself liking the sound the doctor's words.
(listen, love, there's a heart beating in your chest. do you hear it? do you understand how hard it's working just to keep you alive? dearest, no hurricane is eternal; even the strongest spring storm will fade away over time, and so will your inner turmoil. trust me, i know.)