twelve hours » jaeseong

[three hours]

"Is it weird that I feel like I've known you my entire life?" Inseong asked as they walked down the deserted sidewalk. Jaeyoon watched as he kicked at rocks like a young child.

"No," he responded quietly, "not at all."

They weaved through pools of soft orange light dotting the sidewalk. The night was quiet, traffic from somewhere far away slowly reaching their ears. They were quiet for awhile, walking nowhere, but Inseong gently took Jaeyoon's hand.

Without the current of energy and breathlessness from earlier, the gesture felt tender and made Jaeyoon ache with an exquisite melancholy - he had three hours left.

"Where are we going?" He asked.

"Nowhere," Inseong replied. The night has rendered both their voices quiet, and this new side of Inseong was like a delicate glass figurine - beautiful but regarded with caution, lest it break. Inseong's hand was warm.

"Everywhere," Jaeyoon corrected.

"You're so cheesy." Inseong grinned.

So Jaeyoon kissed the back of Inseong's hand. His blush was peach under the streetlights. Jaeyoon shouldn't have done that, but he didn't care. He had everything to lose, and he was going to lose it sooner or later.

Might as well make it worth something.

"I'm tired of walking," Inseong said after a little longer. Jaeyoon had been studying their reflections in the dark shop windows. They looked ordinary and Jaeyoon wanted it so badly that he ached. They sat on a weathered-looking bench under a lamp, bodies pressing together despite the abundance of space on either side of them. The light shone in Inseong's hair, getting caught in the dark, silky strands.

Luminescent.

"Isn't it weird how you showed up out of nowhere, but this whole day hasn't been awkward at all?" Inseong asked. He had started rubbing circles with his thumb on Jaeyoon's hand.

"Except for where you made me choke."

Inseong's laugh broke up the night and Jaeyoon's added to its harmony. The air around them was suddenly shimmering with pink and it was the most beautiful thing Jaeyoon had ever seen - like a million tiny fireflies flitting around their heads. He wished Inseong could see it, too. But when he captured the other boy's gaze, he knew that he could feel it, if not see it. Inseong's mouth hung slightly open as they stared at each other like they were rediscovering facial features.

The atmosphere was so unbearably gentle, like falling out of the sky only to land on the clouds themselves.

"I don't want to sound stupid," Inseong began, voice slow and quiet, like he knew he had all the time in the world. And Jaeyoon hung onto every syllable because he didn't. "But I guess I just wanted to ask if you believe in love at first sight?"

Jaeyoon knew it was a myth. But maybe myths could be wrong sometimes, because he felt love for this boy, this mortal, when he shouldn't.

"I don't think you're stupid," Jaeyoon said. "And I think I do believe in love at first sight."

They both knew why Inseong had asked that particular question, but they allowed the conversation to fade out like the tail end of a comet. The sparks burning Jaeyoon's heart and the the back of his eyelids were the only reminder that it had existed.

Jaeyoon felt something strange in his heart, below the pool of love. Like a mix of honey and acid; the acute knowledge that his time was running out.

He knew that sometimes, when mortals broke a bone, a doctor would break it again so it could heal. That was what Jaeyoon would have to do to Inseong's heart. And it hurt.

It left him breathless, this hurt. He had never felt anything like it. His heart and his mind had never felt so separate in his entire life, and the blood in his veins seemed to pull him toward Inseong because blood was supposed to go to his heart. And somehow, he had lost control of his heart and it was in someone else's hands, and those hands were gentle and pure.

They were the wrong hands.

And Jaeyoon knew he had the wrong heart when he laid his head on Inseong's shoulder and somehow managed to feel content despite the acid eating away at his insides.

"Jaeyoon?"

"Yes?"

"Why do you seem so different?"

"How so?" Jaeyoon stilled, even though for some reason, a little part of him was whispering that his secret maybe didn't have to be a secret anymore.

"I don't know..." Inseong sighed in frustration. "You just seem so...Like you know a secret that no one else does. And you look at people and seem to just know something about them."

A lone car drove past them, headlights sweeping over the immortal amorini and the ethereal mortal.

"Maybe it's you that's different. You're the one who notices things about people."

"I don't know anything about the world or how it works, though."

"Inseong?"

"Yeah?"

"Me either."

And it was true. The world and its planes were a strange, intricate, confusing puzzle that Jaeyoon hoped he never had to solve. And among the mess and tangled strings that made up reality, he knew one thing: he, an amorini, was in love with Inseong, a mortal.

And the pink streaks exploded from both of them, turning their skin rosy and lighting up the night. Jaeyoon lost his breath and stared at the love surrounding them.

He wished Inseong could see it, too.