The Afterlife

24) Like that, it begins.

The margins of the night were widening, leaving space for the green lines of the morning to vow an inevitable light. With a cold breeze beckoning the morning even among the short summer nights, every last soul of those who found the island to get their long-awaited rest stayed up to look at the sky and revel in its beauty.

As foreign as where their feet were, however, some things were bound to never change. It was not the comfort of their home where they stayed, but Yun and Mia took up the space in the balcony for themselves, sitting where their backs could be held by the wall and their eyes by the sky.

"Is it not so beautiful?" Yun asked when several minutes of silence passed by them; she had stolen glances at Mia between said minutes, and found her eyes closed and chest slowly moving every time.

"What is?" With a quirked brow and a single eye opened, Mia looked at Yun from the side of said eye, and she smiled cheekily at what she had of a retort coming the younger girl's way, "you?"

"But then you dare call Sihyeon a devil," Yun snorted, holding a distcontent look at Mia before she rested her head back on the wall and smiled at the endless jests the latter always had in stock, "too mouthy, you are."

"Sorry," Mia chuckled, and it had always been like so; the older girl would lose herself to the jokes, but easily give in to the tight air that would follow; she raised her head to look at Yun properly then, and she heaved a sigh she knew would barely do much to her suddenly aching chest, "I am sorry, Yun."

Like that, the world around them shifted.

Yun knew Mia for a lousy talker, especially around those whom she was most comfortable around. She knew the older girl was sorry, but they never really had the chance to talk as they wanted.

Yun stared silently back at Mia, and it was the latter's sign to keep talking, so she did. She put both hands in her lap and she looked at her fiddling fingers before she exhaled again, trying to push some pressure off her chest to leave room for the words, "you deserve more than I could have ever given you.

"You were twenty, Yun," Mia could not keep her displeasure at bay, frowning at her own words as she tasted them, bitter as they were, late as they were, "I could not have kept you by my side, fully aware of my follies and drawbacks."

"Did I ever complain-"

"And I was twenty-eight," Mia kept going, knowing too well what the younger girl had to say, and knowing too well she had nothing to fight it back with, "even older than you are now, Yun; how did you expect me to do you so dirty?"

"You gave way for your pleasures when you felt need to, though," Yun smiled, an ironic one, if anything, but Mia did not mind, and she nodded, shuddering from within upon remembering her own misdeeds, about a time she did not learn to regret, but simply feel wholly guilty of, "did they not occur to you then, all of these standards?"

"I barely remembered who I was back then," Mia knew it was no excuse; if anything, she was the most in the world to be given many chances to realise the mistake, but she hadn't, and she needed to admit it if even to herself. She was reminded back then, again and again and again, of her relationship with Mia, of her permission to kiss Yun or not if she wanted to, and she always chose to lean in, never stopping once to consider what she was giving away now, "I was so lost."

"So was I, Mia," Yun was crying then, tears spilling as soon they saw pictures of the days she grew to despise more than anything in the world; she did not realise it, but her eyes were reflecting the sea's shimmer, and her lips were quivering around the words, "my mother was so far away, and you were all that I had left, so you were there, and you let me get closer, only to realise - as soon as you fucking lay hand on your memories - that you're too much older when it had always been the case.