𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚊 {𝚑𝚎𝚎𝚔𝚒}

Chapter 1

Heeseung left his house tonight. The sky had a deep blue colour and the air was salty.

The stars weren't too visible this summer. Last summer, they were shiny on a faint sky blue line. Maybe the galaxy. Heeseung would sit on a booth on the and gaze at the scenery. He would watch all the stars fall and remember the times when he was kid he thought that if he was lucky enough he could catch a star and keep it in his room.

He always wished love.

Not in a soulmate way. He doesn't believe in these things.

True love. He had no idea of what the feeling was like. He was convinced that the space where the heart is placed in his chest was a gaping hole sealed by fear.

In his teenage years, when he was thinking of his lack of romantic feelings and dating experience he felt a profound sense of alienation and failure, since the romantic field or in better terms the social one was the one thing he did not excel at.

He was always an outsider of his own life. He kept his friends in a distance that he felt comfortable in and he had no crushes or best friends, dedicated to his unspoken vow to loneliness. His parents only cared about his academic path so he did be a good student, a model for the only children of his extended family.

He could remember himself in adolescence studying most of the time or writting and reading. He really liked to write stories about love. He felt weird chills whenever he witnessed intimacy through books, having a bitter feeling snaking in him when he was once again alone with his thoughts.

During these years he learned to accept his loneliness and live with it. But sometimes, these days, it feels like it knocks his door and makes him aware of it.

He wanted to experience all the yearning and the flowers or whatever involves in the mysterious workings of this feeling but he felt incapable of it.

His favourite song could be heard from his phone as he took a sip of Hennessy and hummed gazing at the ocean. Some loud laughs were heard by the pavement.

High pitched girly giggles accompanied with a loud breathing. After that, a loud slam on the wall and then gasps and saliva sounds.

Heeseung nose scratched as he listened to the strangers making out, making him feel like a weird passerby in his own house. The drink suddenly had a tangy taste.

He stepped out of his house and crossed the road. He wanted to sit on the booth next to the sea. As he walked he saw a figure there. The stranger had a slightly overgrown haircut, a platinum blonde almost with its roots giving away the natural hair colour, brown. He knew that guy. He was sitting on the booth for hours every night when the darkness would cover the sky from over a week now, smoking his lungs out until past midnight.

Heeseung hesitated. He wanted to be alone and stare blankly, feeling suffocated in his house. But now there was him and it would be extremely awkward between them.

He stood in the middle of the street but he quickly went to the other side because a car was passing by.

He awkwardly sat on the left side  of the booth as he was trying not to look at the stranger. But after this his curiosity made him take a peek. The guy was objectively handsome, like these conventionally attractive strangers in the grocery store. Heeseung didn't peek at this point, he was straight up staring.

The man had a really pale face for a some reason that looked could be almost grey under the lighting. His side profile was amazing and his angular eyes were captivating. They were gazing at the sea and Heeseung craved to be seen by them.

Heeseung suddenly felt terribly lonely.

"Hey, do you have a smoke?" he asked in a sweet tone trying to scare off the other.

The stranger didn't even look at him as he passed a cigarette.

"Can you light it for me?" Heeseung asked again in a softer voice.

"Do you want me to hold it for you too?" the low yet boyish voice answered.