"What do you dream of?"
The light chirp of birds mingled with the tinkling of a wind chime, the notes of a surely forgotten melody caught in the breeze somewhere off in the distance. A warm gust wound through the thrown open window and ran up her back, ruffling the sheets slung low on sleep-heavy hips.
Time didn't matter there in the cocoon of linen and tangled limbs; with bellies pressed against bellies and thighs slotted between thighs.
"What makes you think I dream of anything?"
"Because I know you."
Arm resting lazy across the jut of her girlfriend's collarbone, she twirled a wayward curl of blonde between her fingers.
"Now?" Chaewon whispered. "You."
"I don't know if I believe that."
Chaewon bit her lip to hold back a smile and trailed her fingers across the cleaved dip of chest beneath her chin. She leaned down and stained her devotion to such perfect skin, winding stamps of peppered kisses up the column of exquisite neck.
"I have no reason to lie to you," she murmured into the patch of skin just below a delicate ear.
She allowed Yunjin the shake of her head without argument, content to continue tracing patterns over divine archways of skin.
"Fine then. Keep your secrets, demon."
"No secrets," Chaewon smiled with a nip. "You know I would do anything for you."
"Then stay with me," Yunjin hushed into the quiet of their sanctuary. "Let me stay."
Chaewon's eyes drifted closed at the soothing fingers running along her spine, releasing a deep-chested purr that rattled her very bones when nails skated and scratched just beneath her wings.
"... I wish I could , my love."
"Why can't you?"
Letting her eyes blink open, Chaewon searched the face shining up at her.
The light of the room shimmered in a hazy champagne-fizzed glow around it, and only made the woman in her arms all the more beautiful. No purpled pastels or burnished golds of the heavens could begin to compare to Yunjin in that moment. Not in there. Not in such a sacred place.
It made Chaewon ache at the surge of love and regret that filled her.
"You know why," Chaewon sadly reminded her as she ran the pads of her fingers over Yunjin's temple.
"But why should I suffer for your mistakes?"
Feeling a splinter of her heart crack open and bleed, Chaewon rested her head against Yunjin's cheek and struggled through a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry," she whispered in an equally soft plea. "I'm sorry... If I could do it again— if I could take it all back—"
"Then what? You'd rather we have been nothing then?"
"No," Chaewon keened through another fracture, yearning for Yunjin to just understand as she pulled back to stare helplessly into eyes that blazed white-hot in the haze of the room. "I would go through hell each morning, if only to hold you each night. You know that. You know me."
"Then stay."
Whisper soft hands pulled Chaewon up into a kiss that she readily let herself melt into. "But I'll never be allowed to keep you. I haven't made things right yet," she murmured against sunrise-sweetened lips.
Yunjin kissed her with greater intensity, eyes bright and stricken yet determinedly open through it all. As though she were afraid a mere blink would whisk Chaewon away on the flutter of her lashes.
