a love that lasts | choi seungcheol

a love that lasts

It wasn't a surprise that he stayed late again to practice.

You were used to it by now.

Curling up in bed alone, you pulled the silky sheets up to your chin, rubbing your bare legs together in a feeble attempt to warm yourself, something that Seungcheol would usually do easily, engulfing you in his strong arms and surrounding you with a comforting warmth.

You weren't quite sleepy yet. You could have turned on the TV that hung on the wall opposite of the headboard, or you could have turned on your phone and scrolled through a stupid app mindlessly for hours, waiting for Seungcheol to come home. But you didn't. Instead, you laid there in the darkness alone, feeling nothing but the oddly heavy weight of the blankets on top of your body. You didn't have to close your eyes to welcome the darkness that you craved, the cover of the storm clouds was enough. Usually there would be a silver of silver moonlight pouring through the crack in your curtains, a mistake made by Seungcheol when the faulty curtains were purchased. They were just an inch too short, leaving room down the middle of the window, allowing those dribbles of moonlight to stream across your face when the moon was positioned just right. But you never told him of course, not after he'd put them up himself, oblivious to the fact that there was an inch of space between them, something that he was blind to since it didn't reflect the moonlight over his side of the bed. The memory made you slip a single hand out from under the covers, cold air wafting over the exposed skin and raising goosebumps along your bare arm. You slid your hand over his empty side of the bed, stroking the small, almost unnoticeable indent in the mattress, shaped perfectly to his body from so many nights of sleeping in the same area in the same position. On particularly lonely nights, you loved nothing more than running your fingers along these indents, whispering in your head that this was where his shoulder would lay, and here his back. There it dipped into his waist and if you stretched all the way to the edge of the bed, there was his arm, tapering into his pretty wrist. You'd memorized this well by now, knowing all of his sleep habits and positions. If you thought hard enough, squeezed your eyes shut tight enough, you could almost pretend like these indents were the man himself.

You dragged his pillow away from its place at the headboard, hugging it to your chest and hesitantly pressing your face into the middle of it, where it dipped down; it was where his head lay night after night. It had a pleasant smell, since he never got into bed without showering first. You once asked him why, since you didn't mind cuddling with him after practice even if he'd been sweating all day. A small part of you might have even liked the way he smelled after practice, musky and manly. You liked burying your face in his chest when you sat in his lap, legs splayed out on either side of his hips, and inhaling deeply. The smell of him, the smell of home. But he'd ruffled your hair, something you hated until he started doing it, and just scoffed, saying that he would never let his partner sleep next to a sweaty monster—here you laughed, because he'd stuttered when saying the word monster, unable to find a better word to describe himself—and kissed you on the forehead before heading off to shower away the events of his tiring day. You buried your nose deeper into the pillow, almost willing Seungcheol to come home already so you could smell the real thing, and felt weary at the thought, the repetitiveness of missing him. And really, the pillow didn't smell like him, who were you kidding. It just smelled like his shampoo. Nothing musky, nothing like Seungcheol at all. His shampoo was only a small part of his scent.

You didn't let go of the pillow, even though you probably should have. It was long enough to wrap your legs around it so you did, enjoying the way it molded to your body and gave you support, something that you usually got from wrapping your legs around your boyfriend. You sighed deeply, so deep that you let out a little wheeze at the end from the exhaust of your exhale, and stared into the darkness again, concentrating on the sounds of the pouring rain against the window panes. Heavy, fat drops thudded against the glass rhythmically, lulling you into a daze in between consciousness and sleep. Every now and then you could see a flash of lightning from between the curtains, lighting up the room in an eerie white glow for just a moment, before a deep roll of thunder grumbled, making your heart jump just a little at the unexpectedness.