Play Me Your Heart
Play Me Your Heart
Baekhyun-IU, Romance - Angst, PG-13; ~2,523 w
Like criminals, they live in memory of a sin
→ I’d like to thank michaelchang kurdoodle and kisoap (mylika too!) who ship and write this particular couple. raeyoo wanted a baekiu, so this is it and I hope I’ve written what you wanted bb. 16 requests more to go - let’s all hope I won’t be writing everything in angst. A continuation of what I started for Hannah’s birthday drabble, my momentary thing, this apparently will not be as fluffy. This took quite long to write even though it’s not that long to begin with because I wasn’t sure about it but I hope Izabelle likes this. I tried my best and I’m sorry if it’s not that good, I don’t think I’ve written anything good lately.
Now or never.
Now she’s racing as fast as she can on her wedding day, a quarter before it hits three o’ clock - her grin reaching her eyes as she doesn’t dare check if anyone is still after them, her hand holding his so tightly. His smile as well lightens the dark skies, and they find shelter from the rain under the barbershop’s awning. They realize they lost all the (her) groom’s chasers by switching avenues and alleys (Baekhyun is quite good at it, scurrying through dirty streets and knowing where it’ll lead you. That’s probably the only thing he’s good at, she says and they will burst into laughter because there’s a tiny spoon of truth in it).
“We’re off to a good start!” He laughs, drenched, freezing but nonetheless happy.
Panting, she glares. “Honestly, I don’t see that much of a start.”
He sighs, still smiling. “We can’t stop here, you know. We’ll take that plane to Paris, live there for the rest of our lives, raise kids and start a business. Maybe a bar where I can play the piano and you can sing -”
“And we’ll never look back,” Jieun whispers, trying to stay calm even though it’s impossible.
Baekhyun catches her enthusiasm like a fatal flu, letting out a cackle from exhilaration. She doesn’t let go of his hand (not ever) and she inches closer. He presses and returns the intensity of her grip and Baekhyun, with his free hand, tucks the limp hair crossing her face at the back of her ear. They smile at each other after this.
“We’ll never look back from here on.”
Never, he promises.
The hardest part, perhaps, about being in love is that everything sounds the same, looks the same, smells the same - unappealing, except evidently for the person you love and it troubles her; because reality merging with dreams has never been so knotted. All your hours, minutes, for the man (woman) of your life, sickeningly romantic in fact, but this is now, and it’s the longest they have been after hands brushing in the hallways or the long gazes during business meetings.
Peeking from under the armrest and airlines blanket, their intertwined hands are the first thing she sees as she stirs awake. Her eyes, as alert as they have gotten themselves to be, dart to her company, the owner of the hand she kept warm for probably a few hours or so by now. Still in dreamland he clearly is, mouth slightly open and hanging, his head leaning without a care against the other side. He must have fallen asleep, she thinks, watching the clouds outside pass by, or staring at some island below in the middle of whatever ocean, or maybe waiting for her to wake up? - she likes the last guess most.
Lethargically, she takes our her hand in complete silence but he jerks at once with it, distinctively taking it back and just before she knows it, Jieun spots a cute smile, a form of deception she might want to say but he’s always been that.
“When did you wake up?” she asks, head now on his shoulder.
“When you woke up,” Baekhyun replies. “Aren’t we so destined for each other?”
She playfully punches his cheek because he’s overdoing it, while he receives the blow, laughing and closing his eyes.
So he waits until she falls asleep again, so he can take her closer to him, take in all he can remember of her starting from today, while he stares into empty space, thinking how he can never love someone as much as he is presently with Jieun, even if he is six years old, or twenty-five years older. Now. It’s important. He should remember now, not what is long gone or what is yesterday or what the future is (bound to be punishing, they never doubt).
The plane lands in Paris, the city of love, around a quarter before it is seven in the evening. The streets are beautiful, the skies lighted with paper lanterns, and after watching them, still with their heavy luggage, they order ridiculously tasty pasta from a street that looked like it was drawn from a 1900’s film with the entire bricked sidewalk, the high tables and the low ceiling. They check in, at last, and he cradles her into the hotel room like it is their first, which it isn’t and they are not married to begin with, but it has been one long tiring day, that sleep -even if it has been what they have been doing - is still of utmost importance.
Jetlag makes her vomit the following morning, Baekhyun to her side and reading off a translator book the prescriptions in French, ones they can buy from the pharmacy downstairs. Splitting headaches test both of their plans so both spend day one of the most amazing vacation ever lying beside each other, quiet and queasy, nested under comforters because it’ll be winter soon, while the TV goes on and on, jabbering a language they have yet to adapt to.
That is love. And this is how it blossoms.
Day two undoubtedly doesn’t count to be a day. How little is twenty-four hours to two people who have the least time in the world to fall in love - principles about life are reversed: that happiness becomes little, temporary (but is there such a thing as permanence?) and uncertain while pain and hurt, they seem to remain forever even without you intentionally thinking about them. In the middle of watching circus acts in the streets and eating ice cream, misery throbs in your head like termites on a decaying log, your decaying mind easily succumbing to what you don’t need to feel.
She holds onto his arm tighter, her heart falling into an abyss of some shitty villain’s trap. He notices how she clings as if he is about to disappear into thin air that very moment, so Baekhyun, grinning in luck, pats her head, gives it a kiss, and continues walking with her. The weather seems better now, humid enough to cool down and relax, and a walk in the park is always ideal for couplings on their honeymoon. They’re not just a coupling, and they’re not on their honeymoon either, but they stand in front of the famous Eifel tower like it’s some genie who’ll grant any wish of the heart. A part of her wishes it truly is, that it listens to rotting hearts while he hopes and prays this is right, just even a tiny percent.
Their hearts have never been so wrong.
The keys of the upright piano age each minute he presses them, how heavy and unused they go on every night. A little lighted-hearted than often now, the couple both stand on stage, about sixty people below, mostly foreigners, and the other quarter appear like Koreans indeed. Some seats are vacant, some filled with plump men and vodka, but not much of a difference comes in between. It won’t even be like they’ll be listening to them tonight, Baekhyun sadly thinks, and what a shame because Jieun appears lovelier than any singer he has laid eyes on.
With an intro as long as the days they do not meet, Baekhyun’s fingers run from one point of an octave to another, still as smoothly as he can remember the melody and then Jieun breathes into the microphone, all eyes and ears suddenly basked in her angelic charisma.
A soulful jazzy tune keeps the crowd awake, in love, falling deeper into the autumn rendition of a fairly unfamiliar song. Her pronunciation is a tad off, but this is okay, she can feel Baekhyun telling her from behind as he plays. This is the start, the beginning they have longed to establish. And she’s making the steps towards what is dishonest but true. Jieun feels like a rebel after a long while, and it keeps her sane for the rest of the night, where people congratulate and acknowledge her vocal ability more than her family has done in the past. Baekhyun’s hand always supports her from behind, like how it’s supposed to be.
But that’s not how it should be -she knows this more than anything in the world.
“I broke my favorite cup,” Jieun, still in her pajamas, says one day over breakfast, while Baekhyun reads his daily paper. A week has passed and how very fleeting that vacation has been.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Baekhyun answers apathetically.
She stares at the wrecked pieces of glass on the sink, then back at her thumb suddenly exhausting bits of blood. Baekhyun doesn’t see this as he goes over the rest of the political section, reading French news which totally has nothing to do with him unless he plans to be an ambassador of goodwill or a democrat for European-Asian exchanges.
“But it was my favorite,” she emphasizes. “Favorites are special, can’t be replaced.”
He chuckles, calls her to his side and hands a hug since this seem to upset her so very early today. “Just like you, you mean? My favorite girl in the world who can never ever be replaced?”
Dishonest but true. Everything about them has turned into a wispy fairytale out of a monochromatic romance they claim they have. They don’t.
Favorite, Jieun exactly is, but not that special.
The happy days are always limited, and it isn’t long before the plan flops right in front of her face. If you’ve sacrificed so much, does it really mean you love this person? Can it really be measured in terms of giving more than receiving? Has love always been so conditional? Maybe, Jieun believes, because if Baekhyun does this for her, he expects her to return something of same worth or even greater. Equivalent exchange, to simply put it. Then again maybe not, although she can’t think of a time to support this side of the argument.
Sometimes Jieun doesn’t fall asleep with him next to her, always whispering another woman’s name and yet she never reprimands, never complains, what right does she have in the first place. And even if it hurts, she has to keep quiet, or else he might leave her behind and never look back. She ignores the defeat of her dying soul, the one that sails against the wind, against what is just and fair because she is a woman in love, and that can’t be corrected easily. She pretends not to hear Baekhyun say I love you to the one on the phone (-he doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t!), left miles and miles back home who Jieun knows and doesn’t ever want to meet.
“So when?” Jieun asks over dinner, unable to eat, playing with the meatball on her plate.
He clears his throat, wipes his mouth and drinks some water because things have gotten quite uncomfortable. “Soon, she says. She just found out just before we left Korea.”
“That’s good,” she answers at once, smiling but nearly teary when he reaches for her hand. It’s cold.
He says he loves her too, as much as she is his favorite girl and that is a fact.
Baekhyun does not want anything else in the world than be with her: another fact. But life comes frowsy and pitiful, a bastard that likes punching dreams until it pukes blood and dies and cease to exist.
People from various walks of life go to the airport either for two things: leaving their families or meeting them once again. Their hands part the moment they walk on Korean land and she is Ms. Lee Jieun once again, assistant to the chief of board of directors in the architectural company, and he is Engr. Byun Baekhyun, executive operations manager of the mentioned establishment. They leave the country to Paris as noted to be a business trip, and in month’s time they return.
Her eyes are hidden behind a pair of glasses, unseen to the normal naked eye but Baekhyun knows they have grown swollen and red. No shouting or fighting is involved in this, because the truth doesn’t need to hurt more than it already does.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Baekhyun gives her hand a soft tug, and she just smiles. It hurts.
Not too long later, they stand in front of the verdict, her expression hasn’t been too nicely done but she still has that twinkle in her eyes, a very beautiful and charming woman indeed that her smile simply illuminates the day and puts the sunshine to shame. She’s exactly what Baekhyun likes, the type of girl nobody ever wants to leave.
He rushes now to the girl, embraces her wholly while Jieun maintains distance to avoid any fuss, pretending not to see, pretending not to hurt at all. What right does Ms. Lee Jieun have over Mrs. Byun Baekhyun who she doesn’t need to know more about, because then and there, Jieun has wished she just disappeared.
“Ah, this is our assistant little architect who’s been helping out a lot,” Baekhyun introduces, pushing her to shake hands with the other woman. She does anyway, bowing her head in greeting and respect.
“It’s good to meet you, Jieun! Baekhyun has told me so much about you,” she tells her, at the same time rubbing her protruding tummy that is too evident to disregard even if it has been just three months.
“She almost got married last month too, out of her father’s wishes.”
She smiles at Jieun, as if knowing what has happened from that anecdote. She knows, she knows - Jieun can’t help but assume it is the case. The woman may know about the fake trip, being an escapade between two lovers tragically surviving corporate lives under the microscope, or she may know Baekhyun has been cheating on her since the start of time, long even before they have been married, and it has been with Jieun, his favorite girl. Jieun: a heartless monster trying to break apart an already happy relationship - shameful, appalling, a woman who has set no standards or beliefs to build her up.
And maybe that’s the saddest thing about love. That it knows no grounds to follow, no religion to be a standard body, because if you do love someone, you’ll love them whole-heartedly, unreservedly, without a doubt and without hesitation. You give all you can, to borrow the time you can never own; such an expensive thing it is, unfair yet true.
With their bags following their behinds, Baekhyun swings an arm now on the love of his life, his real Cinderella, as she watches with a faithful guilt inside her heart, Jieun now left lonely just like the beginning, and the memory living, kicking inside of her, which her doctor has surprisingly revealed to be the results of not mere travelling or sea-sickness, the foreign air or the spoiled milk, but it is what is known to be love. And she can’t ever tell him about it.
Not now, when the more rightful person fights for the same thing.
Never, she just promises herself.
Baekhyun-IU, Romance - Angst, PG-13; ~2,523 w
Like criminals, they live in memory of a sin
→ I’d like to thank michaelchang kurdoodle and kisoap (mylika too!) who ship and write this particular couple. raeyoo wanted a baekiu, so this is it and I hope I’ve written what you wanted bb. 16 requests more to go - let’s all hope I won’t be writing everything in angst. A continuation of what I started for Hannah’s birthday drabble, my momentary thing, this apparently will not be as fluffy. This took quite long to write even though it’s not that long to begin with because I wasn’t sure about it but I hope Izabelle likes this. I tried my best and I’m sorry if it’s not that good, I don’t think I’ve written anything good lately.
Now or never.
Now she’s racing as fast as she can on her wedding day, a quarter before it hits three o’ clock - her grin reaching her eyes as she doesn’t dare check if anyone is still after them, her hand holding his so tightly. His smile as well lightens the dark skies, and they find shelter from the rain under the barbershop’s awning. They realize they lost all the (her) groom’s chasers by switching avenues and alleys (Baekhyun is quite good at it, scurrying through dirty streets and knowing where it’ll lead you. That’s probably the only thing he’s good at, she says and they will burst into laughter because there’s a tiny spoon of truth in it).
“We’re off to a good start!” He laughs, drenched, freezing but nonetheless happy.
Panting, she glares. “Honestly, I don’t see that much of a start.”
He sighs, still smiling. “We can’t stop here, you know. We’ll take that plane to Paris, live there for the rest of our lives, raise kids and start a business. Maybe a bar where I can play the piano and you can sing -”
“And we’ll never look back,” Jieun whispers, trying to stay calm even though it’s impossible.
Baekhyun catches her enthusiasm like a fatal flu, letting out a cackle from exhilaration. She doesn’t let go of his hand (not ever) and she inches closer. He presses and returns the intensity of her grip and Baekhyun, with his free hand, tucks the limp hair crossing her face at the back of her ear. They smile at each other after this.
“We’ll never look back from here on.”
Never, he promises.
The hardest part, perhaps, about being in love is that everything sounds the same, looks the same, smells the same - unappealing, except evidently for the person you love and it troubles her; because reality merging with dreams has never been so knotted. All your hours, minutes, for the man (woman) of your life, sickeningly romantic in fact, but this is now, and it’s the longest they have been after hands brushing in the hallways or the long gazes during business meetings.
Peeking from under the armrest and airlines blanket, their intertwined hands are the first thing she sees as she stirs awake. Her eyes, as alert as they have gotten themselves to be, dart to her company, the owner of the hand she kept warm for probably a few hours or so by now. Still in dreamland he clearly is, mouth slightly open and hanging, his head leaning without a care against the other side. He must have fallen asleep, she thinks, watching the clouds outside pass by, or staring at some island below in the middle of whatever ocean, or maybe waiting for her to wake up? - she likes the last guess most.
Lethargically, she takes our her hand in complete silence but he jerks at once with it, distinctively taking it back and just before she knows it, Jieun spots a cute smile, a form of deception she might want to say but he’s always been that.
“When did you wake up?” she asks, head now on his shoulder.
“When you woke up,” Baekhyun replies. “Aren’t we so destined for each other?”
She playfully punches his cheek because he’s overdoing it, while he receives the blow, laughing and closing his eyes.
So he waits until she falls asleep again, so he can take her closer to him, take in all he can remember of her starting from today, while he stares into empty space, thinking how he can never love someone as much as he is presently with Jieun, even if he is six years old, or twenty-five years older. Now. It’s important. He should remember now, not what is long gone or what is yesterday or what the future is (bound to be punishing, they never doubt).
The plane lands in Paris, the city of love, around a quarter before it is seven in the evening. The streets are beautiful, the skies lighted with paper lanterns, and after watching them, still with their heavy luggage, they order ridiculously tasty pasta from a street that looked like it was drawn from a 1900’s film with the entire bricked sidewalk, the high tables and the low ceiling. They check in, at last, and he cradles her into the hotel room like it is their first, which it isn’t and they are not married to begin with, but it has been one long tiring day, that sleep -even if it has been what they have been doing - is still of utmost importance.
Jetlag makes her vomit the following morning, Baekhyun to her side and reading off a translator book the prescriptions in French, ones they can buy from the pharmacy downstairs. Splitting headaches test both of their plans so both spend day one of the most amazing vacation ever lying beside each other, quiet and queasy, nested under comforters because it’ll be winter soon, while the TV goes on and on, jabbering a language they have yet to adapt to.
That is love. And this is how it blossoms.
Day two undoubtedly doesn’t count to be a day. How little is twenty-four hours to two people who have the least time in the world to fall in love - principles about life are reversed: that happiness becomes little, temporary (but is there such a thing as permanence?) and uncertain while pain and hurt, they seem to remain forever even without you intentionally thinking about them. In the middle of watching circus acts in the streets and eating ice cream, misery throbs in your head like termites on a decaying log, your decaying mind easily succumbing to what you don’t need to feel.
She holds onto his arm tighter, her heart falling into an abyss of some shitty villain’s trap. He notices how she clings as if he is about to disappear into thin air that very moment, so Baekhyun, grinning in luck, pats her head, gives it a kiss, and continues walking with her. The weather seems better now, humid enough to cool down and relax, and a walk in the park is always ideal for couplings on their honeymoon. They’re not just a coupling, and they’re not on their honeymoon either, but they stand in front of the famous Eifel tower like it’s some genie who’ll grant any wish of the heart. A part of her wishes it truly is, that it listens to rotting hearts while he hopes and prays this is right, just even a tiny percent.
Their hearts have never been so wrong.
The keys of the upright piano age each minute he presses them, how heavy and unused they go on every night. A little lighted-hearted than often now, the couple both stand on stage, about sixty people below, mostly foreigners, and the other quarter appear like Koreans indeed. Some seats are vacant, some filled with plump men and vodka, but not much of a difference comes in between. It won’t even be like they’ll be listening to them tonight, Baekhyun sadly thinks, and what a shame because Jieun appears lovelier than any singer he has laid eyes on.
With an intro as long as the days they do not meet, Baekhyun’s fingers run from one point of an octave to another, still as smoothly as he can remember the melody and then Jieun breathes into the microphone, all eyes and ears suddenly basked in her angelic charisma.
A soulful jazzy tune keeps the crowd awake, in love, falling deeper into the autumn rendition of a fairly unfamiliar song. Her pronunciation is a tad off, but this is okay, she can feel Baekhyun telling her from behind as he plays. This is the start, the beginning they have longed to establish. And she’s making the steps towards what is dishonest but true. Jieun feels like a rebel after a long while, and it keeps her sane for the rest of the night, where people congratulate and acknowledge her vocal ability more than her family has done in the past. Baekhyun’s hand always supports her from behind, like how it’s supposed to be.
But that’s not how it should be -she knows this more than anything in the world.
“I broke my favorite cup,” Jieun, still in her pajamas, says one day over breakfast, while Baekhyun reads his daily paper. A week has passed and how very fleeting that vacation has been.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Baekhyun answers apathetically.
She stares at the wrecked pieces of glass on the sink, then back at her thumb suddenly exhausting bits of blood. Baekhyun doesn’t see this as he goes over the rest of the political section, reading French news which totally has nothing to do with him unless he plans to be an ambassador of goodwill or a democrat for European-Asian exchanges.
“But it was my favorite,” she emphasizes. “Favorites are special, can’t be replaced.”
He chuckles, calls her to his side and hands a hug since this seem to upset her so very early today. “Just like you, you mean? My favorite girl in the world who can never ever be replaced?”
Dishonest but true. Everything about them has turned into a wispy fairytale out of a monochromatic romance they claim they have. They don’t.
Favorite, Jieun exactly is, but not that special.
The happy days are always limited, and it isn’t long before the plan flops right in front of her face. If you’ve sacrificed so much, does it really mean you love this person? Can it really be measured in terms of giving more than receiving? Has love always been so conditional? Maybe, Jieun believes, because if Baekhyun does this for her, he expects her to return something of same worth or even greater. Equivalent exchange, to simply put it. Then again maybe not, although she can’t think of a time to support this side of the argument.
Sometimes Jieun doesn’t fall asleep with him next to her, always whispering another woman’s name and yet she never reprimands, never complains, what right does she have in the first place. And even if it hurts, she has to keep quiet, or else he might leave her behind and never look back. She ignores the defeat of her dying soul, the one that sails against the wind, against what is just and fair because she is a woman in love, and that can’t be corrected easily. She pretends not to hear Baekhyun say I love you to the one on the phone (-he doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t!), left miles and miles back home who Jieun knows and doesn’t ever want to meet.
“So when?” Jieun asks over dinner, unable to eat, playing with the meatball on her plate.
He clears his throat, wipes his mouth and drinks some water because things have gotten quite uncomfortable. “Soon, she says. She just found out just before we left Korea.”
“That’s good,” she answers at once, smiling but nearly teary when he reaches for her hand. It’s cold.
He says he loves her too, as much as she is his favorite girl and that is a fact.
Baekhyun does not want anything else in the world than be with her: another fact. But life comes frowsy and pitiful, a bastard that likes punching dreams until it pukes blood and dies and cease to exist.
People from various walks of life go to the airport either for two things: leaving their families or meeting them once again. Their hands part the moment they walk on Korean land and she is Ms. Lee Jieun once again, assistant to the chief of board of directors in the architectural company, and he is Engr. Byun Baekhyun, executive operations manager of the mentioned establishment. They leave the country to Paris as noted to be a business trip, and in month’s time they return.
Her eyes are hidden behind a pair of glasses, unseen to the normal naked eye but Baekhyun knows they have grown swollen and red. No shouting or fighting is involved in this, because the truth doesn’t need to hurt more than it already does.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Baekhyun gives her hand a soft tug, and she just smiles. It hurts.
Not too long later, they stand in front of the verdict, her expression hasn’t been too nicely done but she still has that twinkle in her eyes, a very beautiful and charming woman indeed that her smile simply illuminates the day and puts the sunshine to shame. She’s exactly what Baekhyun likes, the type of girl nobody ever wants to leave.
He rushes now to the girl, embraces her wholly while Jieun maintains distance to avoid any fuss, pretending not to see, pretending not to hurt at all. What right does Ms. Lee Jieun have over Mrs. Byun Baekhyun who she doesn’t need to know more about, because then and there, Jieun has wished she just disappeared.
“Ah, this is our assistant little architect who’s been helping out a lot,” Baekhyun introduces, pushing her to shake hands with the other woman. She does anyway, bowing her head in greeting and respect.
“It’s good to meet you, Jieun! Baekhyun has told me so much about you,” she tells her, at the same time rubbing her protruding tummy that is too evident to disregard even if it has been just three months.
“She almost got married last month too, out of her father’s wishes.”
She smiles at Jieun, as if knowing what has happened from that anecdote. She knows, she knows - Jieun can’t help but assume it is the case. The woman may know about the fake trip, being an escapade between two lovers tragically surviving corporate lives under the microscope, or she may know Baekhyun has been cheating on her since the start of time, long even before they have been married, and it has been with Jieun, his favorite girl. Jieun: a heartless monster trying to break apart an already happy relationship - shameful, appalling, a woman who has set no standards or beliefs to build her up.
And maybe that’s the saddest thing about love. That it knows no grounds to follow, no religion to be a standard body, because if you do love someone, you’ll love them whole-heartedly, unreservedly, without a doubt and without hesitation. You give all you can, to borrow the time you can never own; such an expensive thing it is, unfair yet true.
With their bags following their behinds, Baekhyun swings an arm now on the love of his life, his real Cinderella, as she watches with a faithful guilt inside her heart, Jieun now left lonely just like the beginning, and the memory living, kicking inside of her, which her doctor has surprisingly revealed to be the results of not mere travelling or sea-sickness, the foreign air or the spoiled milk, but it is what is known to be love. And she can’t ever tell him about it.
Not now, when the more rightful person fights for the same thing.
Never, she just promises herself.