The Afterlife

8) My World, Your Letters

Sihyeon woke up the next day, and the noise beyond the edges of her bed was nothing in the face of that which she remembered; there was a low hum that continued in a long line, and an imperfect rhythm of a knife on a cutting board.

She figured that the noise that woke her up was not that, but her phone that started ringing again, and it was Taehyung; in eleven years, it never changed - the sight of his restless missed calls, each befriending the other, and none of them with less energy or an intention to give.

The only thing that changed was that he sometimes only called for the sake of calling, to make sure that she breathed, that she talked back to him, that she cursed his jokes and hung up on him sometimes it even felt like his daily dosage that he can't go without.

The headache that grew on her had her missing that call as well, but only this time it was on her own accord. She put the phone upside down, completely hiding the light from the screen before she got a handful of her head that thrummed.

For some reason, Sihyeon felt restless, and it was not the liquor, nor the aftermath of her drunkenness, but something in the pits of her chest felt like it weighed her down, and her breathing was unusually slow.

"Darn you, Kim Sihyeon," she muttered to herself, breathing like air was limited, like it was going to leave the room and her behind any second, and so she had to be selfish, "all it takes your bitchy brain is two shots to hurry and seize death."

"Then you should not have done it, Kim Sihyeon," Sihyeon did not realise the sound of the knife on the cutting board ceased until the very hands that used them were opening the curtains in the room; Sihyeon would have cursed that, too, but she knew she needed to get up, and she knew she needed more than lying down and contemplating it.

"No shit," Sihyeon covered her eyes regardless; it irritated her head further, and it was the last thing she wanted when she was already having a feast of headache.

Those same hands seemed to be full of surprises that morning, because Sihyeon only figured they were no longer working on the curtains when they were on either of her sides, and Yeonjun was hovering over her all of a sudden.

Sihyeon gasped, and her hands snatched themselves away from her face, taking a hold of Yeonjun's arms unconsciously for support instead; her eyebrows spoke of her surprise when they furrowed - it was no good surprise for her already whining heart and head, "wha-"

"Do you have something to tell me, Kim Sihyeon?" Yeonjun did not look like he was genuinely asking, and he did not look clueless either - seven years were enough for Sihyeon to know, even when his face would have told all the other people otherwise.

"That is weird," but in all seven years, still, she had not witnessed her full name amongst his verbs, and she knew it was only a game of his, a terrible two-good-minutes where he enjoyed himself, but even in that state and when she should have been focused on fighting back the nausea that filled her, Sihyeon could not help but wish silently for him to say it more, "stop calling me that."

Yet she was not going to tell him so.

Yeonjun's eyebrows raised; he did not have to speak further for her to give up playing dumb, for they both knew he was not to give up, and they both knew he was getting somewhere - he always was.

"What stupid shit did I utter this time?" Sihyeon sighed, and the feeling of sickness washed all over her again, painting her from head to toe; Sihyeon swallowed to imprison it all in the pits of her stomach, and she kept her eyes on Yeonjun, wishing his eyes would eat what was left of her reckless night away.

"Nothing much," he painted a mouth shrug on his lips, and Sihyeon could not trace his eyes when they left hers, but she knew he was looking somewhere at her body.