twenty-three suns | kang taehyun

THIRTEEN DAYS LEFT

The five days away from Taehyun should have been blissful, filled with endless fruity drinks and the salty tang of the ocean water kissing your sun-warmed skin, but instead you found endless grains of sand wedging their way into unsavory places and a crowded beach full of crying children—evidently, not a good time.

And perhaps you should have prepared yourself for the disappointment, though you shouldn't have been disappointed regardless when you realized Taehyun wouldn't be writing you any letters. That was the sort of thing that you did with your significant other, not some rando you were fucking to pass the time. But you found yourself in your hotel room more often than not, cheap, half-dry pen in hand as you stared down at the pad of paper labeled with the hotel name, wondering if you should write him a little something anyways.

You spent most of those five days doing exactly that, and when you weren't, you were sunbathing while writing imaginary letters to the handsome man in your head, hoping that he was doing the same for you, even though you knew deep down in your heart he definitely wasn't.

As it always was, arriving back home after a long vacation felt semi-bittersweet; though you hadn't enjoyed it nearly as much as you thought you would, you still missed the warm ocean and the endless drinks, and being home was just so boring in comparison. You decided that if you ever became rich, you would move to a sunny place just like that and live out the rest of your day there, relaxing with no worries, and certainly no concerns about letters from someone who wasn't supposed to mean anything to you. You found yourself slathering on sunscreen and tip-toeing down the stairs in your backyard to crawl back onto your mother's patio furniture, ignoring how you now had a lack of cheap plastic sunglasses and a face-full of bright sunlight. You sipped at a smoothie you'd messily put together in hopes that it would mimic the drinks you had on vacation, but it paled in comparison, and you half-wished you hadn't even bothered making it with how disappointing it was.

"I thought you said we would see each other again when you came back."

"I've only been back for a few hours, clingy much?" You sit up in your chair and look across the backyard to the source of the voice, immediately spotting Taehyun hanging over your fence.

"Five days is a long time," he said, "how much longer would you make me wait?"

"Get used to it," you said, "you know why."

"I'm not being serious," he countered, climbing up on the lowest rung of the fence. He swung one lanky leg over the top and then brought over the remaining limb, stumbling only a little as he held onto the wooden bars. "But you didn't text me to tell me you were back."

"I said five days," you said, picking up your smoothie just so you'd have something to do with your hands, "I've never lied to you yet, have I?"

"I guess not." Taehyun walked over and sat in the chair next to yours. "How was it? Your vacation?"

"Great," you said, lying through your teeth, "so much... sun. And hot people. Half-naked hot people."

"You sound like a really sheltered person who just saw porn for the first time, you know that?" Taehyun picked up your smoothie as soon as you put it down and captured the straw between his lips. "This is good. Did you make it yourself?"

"What do you want me to say, I missed you or something?" you asked, scowling at him.

"At least say that you missed the sex," he said, "I know I did."

"What if I hooked up with other people while I was on vacation?" you asked.

"Did you?"

"Why do you care?"