It Meets You Where You Wait • Yeonbin

FIFTEEN

Soobin blinks his eyes open. The sun hasn't risen yet, he can tell. He's on his back, so he cranes his neck to take in the room. The faint blue light of early morning is casted over the shapes of his furniture, over the soft curves of Yeonjun's face. 

The boy lies on his side facing him, head cushioned on his bicep. His eyes blink slowly.

"You snore."

"I'm sure I do,"  Soobin yawns. "Now go to sleep."

"You have to work in two hours," he says drowsily.

Soobin huffs and tugs the boy into his side. "Then I'll get up in a bit. Let me hold you."

And Yeonjun does. His eyes look heavy, though his gaze is light, and his fingers are soft where they rest atop Soobin's chest.

Yeonjun's face, bathed in blue sunrise, makes him look youthful, and oddly vulnerable. Yeonjun blinks up at him. Soobin sighs and rolls over, so they're facing each other.

"What's keeping you up?" Soobin says.

"Worrying about whatever you've been spacing out over."

Soobin exhales heavily. He'd prefer to have this conversation after longer sleep, but if Yeonjun is talking, then he will too.

His voice feels fragile when masked by the dawn. "Do you know? About... the way that people forget?"

Yeonjun's eyes flick away from his face, then look back at him again. "I... I do."

Soobin watches him, and asks, "Then why would you let me in?"

Why would he let Soobin get close to him, if he knew that inevitably, when this all came to close, the magic would leave?

Yeonjun swallows, and answers, "I don't... I guess I just liked you enough. Enough to disregard the rules."

It's dark in Soobin's room. The moonlight shines between the blinds, just enough for Soobin to see Yeonjun's tired face through it.

The boy continues, "I was drawn to you— I just pushed the thought away, I guess. I didn't think about it. I still don't."

Soobin breathes, "Well I do. I think about it all the time. What am I supposed to do, Yeonjun? Just forget? Just—"

He pauses, unable to say the words. He can't let it all go. He can't go back to empty houses and the pity of his friends' families, not now.

Yeonjun reaches up and strokes the side of Soobin's face.

"Please talk to me," he whispers.

Soobin closes his eyes. Be brave, Soobin.

"I don't want to leave what I've found here," he starts. He opens his eyes, and looks at Yeonjun, through the blue moonlight. "I can't go back to my life how it used to be. Because— every time I picture my life, Yeonjun— you're in it."

Yeonjun's fingers are so light on his skin. "Soobin," he says, "You are so precious to me. I hope you know that."

Soobin closes his eyes again. Yeonjun's forehead presses against his own.

"You've changed me, in more ways than you can know. But I... I don't have the answer you're looking for," Yeonjun says quietly. "I don't want you to forget. I don't want you to leave. But I don't know if there's anything I can do."

It's quiet again, besides the gentle chirping of crickets outside.

Soobin considers for a moment uprooting his life and moving to Mare, maybe.

But the problem is— even when he drops out of college for it, leaves his hometown, gives hasty explanations to whoever cares enough to ask— he's only human.