All Your Lies | Yoon Jeonghan

CH 31: Each Other

[ What Do You Often Think About? ]

Raki could've sworn that in the duration of her journey from where she used to be seated to the one step after the threshold of the doorway, she was not in control of her steps.

How could she have left the room so fast? With a reason as foolish as claiming that something was burning from outside? When there evidently wasn't.

Despite the weakening of her knees and the instability of her breathing, she found the effort to palm her forehead out of sheer shame.

Serious question, why do we only realize the mortifying things we do when it's over? Why not before it happens? Why not as it happens?

If Raki hadn't known any better, she'd say that she was the most unfavored being to exist in a universe with such complex cycles of things.

But, certainly she wasn't and she knows that quite well.

But, maybe she was and every person aside from her doesn't question the chronological orders of things and doesn't bring it up just so they could have something to blame their unfortunate lives on.

"What's on your mind?"

As soon as she heard his voice, so quiet she had almost regarded it as one of her disordered thoughts, Raki tilted her head to the side, staring at Jeonghan with a staggered look as he stood behind her.

She quickly leapt out from her daze then turned front toward him. "Oh. . uhm. . you know, things. ."

"Things?", Jeonghan didn't bother containing his grin, he would've had a hard time anyway if he did.

Raki tried to mirror his expression, yet it only made her facial muscles sore. Did she actually just avoid an uncomfortable conversation with Jeonghan just to be in another uncomfortable conversation with Jeonghan? "Yeah, things. ."

"Like what?"

"Things like. .", Pondering of her answer, she pursed her lips in remorse. "What could happen a second from now."

The tone of his voice was daring as he asked, "And what would it be?"

Raki glanced up for a nanosecond or so. She hesitated for a moment. Perhaps the shame speaking? Perhaps she was wrong about it, maybe we do realize beforehand when we do attempt to do something compromising. But also, perhaps we're just silly little people making silly little mistakes. And Raki was a lot like that. "The sun exploding. Our galaxy colliding with another. .?"

His eyebrows met in both confusion and fright, "Well, damn.", But the playful smile was still there, willingly not subsiding. "How often do you think of things like that?"

"Often.", Her reply came out as a question. Despite saying it out of the blue for no reason, she wasn't also sure how often does she think of things like those.

"Well, I hope you're wrong."

"You don't want to die yet?", Okay, that went out completely not right. Raki paused for a moment to fathom what she had just asked him, then tried to recast, "I mean—"

She stopped to the look on Jeonghan's face; he was just staring at her, his expression blank. He must be thinking of things she doesn't want him to think about. But then, as if it was just the way it was, he breathed out a laugh, his shoulders rising with it, and he looked incredibly amused with his lingering smile that reached all the way to his eyes.

"You really got to tell me the things you often think about, before I begin to take them seriously."

"It's not that, I just— I can't think of anything else to say.", As she spoke, she sighed inwardly, realizing that she had something to admit. "About the uhm— something burning thing. . It was the liquor speaking.", Is lying considered admitting? But, to the very least she was trying, even though she would rather not talk about it ever again. "Even the sun exploding part. And our galaxy colliding with another. . and questioning your view on death.", She really had a lot to say, did she.