rain » vkook

six

it feels surreal to be walking next to sky in the dark. like i'm pulling all the planets behind me but they're not crushing me, they're lifting me up.

i swear our feet hover an inch above the ground. i want to shout and jump and talk and fly but taehyungtaehyung taehyung is quiet. he keeps walking behind me and i keep slowing my pace so i'm beside him, an awkward dance between boundaries and lines that i wish would cease.

finally, after i think that the night stole the sun and taehyung's voice, he speaks.

"thank you." nothing more than a whisper, another layer of the mellifluous wind. but my feet lift higher above the ground. his deep voice echoes in my head, until the words are bouncing around and have no meaning but they mean everything.

"i'm sorry," i say. and he doesn't refuse my apology. he allows me to walk beside him.

he hugs himself and looks down as he walks, like he's unsure of where his feet will land. he still seems magical even without the rain. it still seems like his feet could transport him anywhere he pleased. and yet he stays here with me.

"no," he says, with so much conviction that i see him. i see him as taehyung, not sky, i see him as lost and upset and small, just like the rest of us. "i mean it." he says it on an exhale, like he doesn't know when to breathe and his words are just falling from his mouth unbidden and i get it.

"you saved me," he admits, voice small, but it splits the night, and i can see light in that rift. i saved him.

(The Boy Who Wore the Aurora Borealis on His Skin)

"and i'm scared." he sniffles, a pathetic sound that closes the rift and crashes us to the earth. i hadn't realized that we were flying in the stratosphere, and i stumble at the impact. his hand shoots out as if to steady me, but he stops before he touches me.

"i'll help you," i say. "i promise."

he closes off, retreating away, and my skin feels cold in his absence.

"where are we going?"

i wish he would talk louder. it makes me feel like i'm shouting, like i'm in elementary school again, unable to understand why teachers took me aside and warned me about my volume level when i was just as quiet as everyone else.

"to my apartment, for now. if you don't mind."

"i don't have anywhere else to go," he says. his voice sounds like the blackest of black with little flecks of silver. like the sky. like him.

"why?" i ask, my voice finally as soft as his, as soft as the air against our skin, as soft as newly-fledged promise.

"because i'm scared," he repeats.

"you don't need to be," i say. the warm night holds its breath, and i do too, before exhaling all the good i can find inside myself and sending it to him. "i'm here."

and because i was staring at him anyway, i catch the small smile he throws at me, pure in the way that suggests i wasn't supposed to see it - no lies or unsurety.

just a heartbreakingly fragile relief.

~~~

when we reach my street, it starts to drizzle. i've already apologized too much for making him walk, but each time, he just brushed it off gracefully. i noticed that when it started to rain, his hunched shoulders relaxed.

i let us in to my apartment, and he stands in the middle of the living room. i think the entire building is going to explode because i, jeon jeongguk, have the sky inside my living room. i keep blinking when i look at him.