all my heart || skz

016

I didn't know what time it was when I woke, only that I was in the familiar space of my bedroom. It smelled like dust and my mom's perfume. It was suffocating.

I sat up, a head ache pounding behind my eyes. "Y/N?" My head whipped to the side, meeting the warm eyes of a stranger who used to be a friend.

Hyunjin was sitting in a black foldable chair, his black hair touselled and his eyes red rimmed. "How did I get here?" My voice was small, my lips trembled as the words fell from them.

Hyunjin leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and examining me. I didn't know what for. "Changbin thinks it'd be better not to tell you."

Of course, he did. He was the over protective brother with a basket case for a sibling.

"And you?" I glanced at the light that seeped on from under my bedroom door. "What do you think?"

Hyunjin sighed and ran a hand through his thick hair. "I think that it's not my place to tell you. " He paused, looking out the window. "He's been waiting for you to wake up. He insisted on sitting out on the fire escape, nothing we said could change his mind." He looked back to me, his warm eyes turned cold with whatever emotion was weighing his shoulders down.

"He said you'd understand."

For a moment
For just a brief, forgettable moment
I thought it might be him, back from the fire and smoke that took him from me that day in the hospital.

I could imagine what it would be like to see him out there, a halo of the setting sun cradling his pale face in its dim light. His hair would be as blonde as it was the first day we met, his brown roots poking through, and his eyes would still droop with a sadness he would carry with him the rest of his life. He was beautiful, in the broken, bruised way it always was. He would smile at me and maybe I could feel alright again. Maybe there was a chance for me to tell him the words I never said the first time around.

But it was just a moment and moments end.

There was only one other person who could be sitting out there. Only one person who knew Felix's habits as much as I did. And only one person who missed him as much as I did, even when he tried so hard to deny it.

I didn't rush as I stood and walked to the window, which was cracked and letting a light breeze in. My heart beat was pounding in my head, making me rethink whether I should go out there at all. I could leave now, with Hyunjin, and go to a museum or get some lunch or visit Chan and figure out exactly why I can't let go.

It was the cowardly thing to do and it was what I should have done. But I needed to know why he was back, when I decided I needed to move on and find myself, again.

"I wasn't planning on coming back," he said before I even swung a leg over the sill. "I just-" He sighed, a deep sigh that made me want to cry because I have sighed the very same way. Over and over. It was the sigh of someone who was hurting, and exhausted, and so broken they couldn't even see the cracks. It was the sigh of someone who was trying to crawl out of a hole they made for themselves.

That was my sigh.

Don't cry.

"Why are you here?" I see Hyunjin shift in the corner of my eye. Don't cry. "You're not supposed to be here."

I hate that I can't see him. I hate the way every part of me itched to see him, to recall the way he made me fly and turned my stomach inside out.

"I missed him... I guess."

So why doesn't he make me feel that way anymore?

I run a hand through my hair and close my eyes, struggling to breathe under the weight of him. Under the weight of the memories he dragged back with him.

"I'm trying to get better," I tell him with a sigh. My eyes aren't ready to open, but I'd rather keep them close-where I can imagine another timeline where I was anywhere but here.

Jisung cleared his throat and the sound of fire escape creaked under his weight. "I'm proud of you, Y/N."

I shake my hands at my sides, as if my loosening my muscles and my body I wouldn't feel so claustrophobic in front of an open window, leading out to an entire smoke tainted town. "And I can't get better with you here."

The words tasted sour. Like acid and the taste of him when he first kissed me, and the smell of oil the first time I rode his motorcycle. It tasted like a wineglass full of poisoned first-times.

But I knew they were true. And I knew that Hyunjin knew they were true. And I knew that if I opened my eyes, Hyunjin would give me a smile that he thinks is encouraging, but would be way to pretty to keep me thinking straight.

"I can't get better if you keep leaving and coming back, Jisung. I cannot have someone in my life who can't decide whether they want to stay. Whether they deserve to stay." I let my eyes flutter open I can see his faded blue jeans and the black belt that is barely tight enough to keep them at his waist. "I'm not gonna blame you if you leave, but I'm not gonna beg you to stay either. You can stay if you want to, but I won't be the only reason you decide to."

"You need to find a reason for yourself. Not for your brother, or for your guilt. For you."

I watched him wrap his slim fingers on the side of the window frame, and fold himself onto the sill. I couldn't look at him-not directly-and I kept my eyes focused on the chipped nail polish on his right hand.

I never knew he liked to paint his nails.

"And if I stay? Will you look at me, then?"

Guilt lodged itself in my throw as I said, "I'll try."

"And what about him? What will he do if I stay?"

I looked at Hyunjin then, who was too busy looking Jisung over to notice he had my attention. "Nothing." I said simply, because the truth was I didn't know what Hyunjin would do.

I hoped he would stay.

I hoped he wanted to stay.

And I hoped he would stay in this room. Here, in the company of thoughts and singing birds with grey lungs, with me.

"Changbin told me he's a doctor."

I shrugged, Hyunjin finally meeting my eye. What a marvel he was. "He dabbles in medicine, but he's no doctor." I look back at Jisung's pale fingers. "Not yet, anyway."

He swung his other leg in and stood, but I still couldn't bare to look him in the eyes. "If I stay, will he keep looking at you like that?" He whispered to me, his breath heating the air between us.

My heart said nothing.

Like what? I wanted to ask him, please tell me what.

But instead I only said, "Probably."

-
So, I've actually gotten more demands for updates than I was expecting since I went on an unannounced hiatus and I honestly can't believe the support I still get!

Thanks for all the love and for reminding me why I write <3

I hope your day was well and I hope the next is alive with the potential of something great!!!!