起
き
な
け
れ
ば
_____
HIS VOICE echoed in her dreams.
the morning's delicate golden daylight was reminiscent of the first day of summer break's afternoon glow. the usual alarm that woke her for school was replaced by the ringing of the wind chimes that hung from her window, which she found odd — she could vividly remember shutting it before going to bed. sehwi couldn't decipher between dream and reality. she could only decipher the soft humming that filled the remaining stillness of her bedroom. with her eyes closed she could feel the vibrations like a brush of silk against her skin, and with her eyes open she was hypnotized by the undefined melody.
within that humming were cicadas, and jeongguk, whose upper half of his body was hanging out of the window with his elbows resting against the sill.
mondays always felt different. despite it no longer being a day to worry about for sehwi, it was still the beginning of the week, which meant the hustling and bustling of the rest of the neighborhood, and jeongguk's calls of "good morning!" to the others heading for work. he wore his favorite striped orange shirt, which was her favorite, too, and held a strawberry and cream lollipop in his mouth. from the looks of the opened jar on her desk, she knew it was one of hers.
"jeongguk?" still leaning out of the window, jeongguk turned his head and responded with a slow smile, like a drop of thick molasses, bunching up his cheeks and showing off the lolly stick between his teeth. his eyes were pure, but he was everything dangerously beautiful, like the sting of cut open sicilian blood oranges and a sip of young cherry wine. he left her with shades of red, red like the fading velvet light, and came back to her in blues, blue like the hidden stars of her deep desire.
"good morning," jeongguk said between his smile, "sehwi."
shades of red rushed to the apples of sehwi's cheeks. she quickly pulled her sheets over her head, and all she saw was blue. he laughed, and sehwi thought that he was mocking her, but he laughed with a type of gentleness, with adoration. she didn't hear the "cute" that he whispered under his breath.
"what's wrong?" jeongguk's voice seemed to grow closer, and sehwi's red in her cheeks rushed to her head. she began to panic; she's never shown her embarrassment to jeongguk, at least not upfront like this. her attempts of hiding from him couldn't help her anymore. so she slowly peered out from under the blanket, her eyes immediately going to her window where she expected him, but quickly moving to the end of the bed where he sat.
she expected herself to become even more embarrassed than she already was, but comfort seemed to blanket over her. she felt cradled, safe, just by the sight of him, like his arms became the pillows around her and his body became the mattress. her arms slowly brought themselves down to her chest, and she embraced his presence.
"jeongguk . . ." she was almost whispering.
his eyebrow raised, waiting for her to finish.
". . . can you . . sing for me?"
and so he sang. for a second it was almost as if the cicadas that hummed outside her window harmonized with him. she closed her eyes again, and it felt as if she was reversing time to when she first opened them to their harmonies. his red passions and her blue desires came to her in a violet lust, so alluring but so violent, and she enveloped herself within it.
suddenly everything was shades of purple. her sheets were purple. her ceiling was purple. the stripes of jeongguk's shirt were purple. then the sound of his voice was no longer his — as if he was a stereo playing a record. his voice started to remind her of the times her dad would play his old music for her, and the sound that echoed all around the house. he sounded like her dad's favorite french song, and it wasn't long until that was all that she could hear.
she no longer heard jeongguk, but the muffled sounds of the crackling french music from outside her door. the violet light dimmed, until only the black of the back of her eyelids remained.
she opened her eyes again, this time with the quickness of a snap, and the colors around her turned into grays. she was surrounded by a dullness. dim and monochrome.
jeongguk was no longer there.
he was never there in the first place; just a figment of her imagination. he was a dream.
the sounds of cicadas from outside her window were replaced by the tapping of the rain on her roof. the busy sounds of the neighborhood were no longer there; just the crashing of the storm. jeongguk's calming voice, replaced by the intense whirls of the wind. the wind chimes no longer played with serenity but were violent against the air. compared to the sweetness that sang sehwi to sleep, the wind was awfully loud, as if it was screaming in her ear.
as quickly as she turned her head to the window, sehwi jolted out of her bed to close it shut. her hands pressed against the cold, wet glass, with her head down and her chest pumping in and out. first it was her hands, going down to wipe at her sides, then her deep breath, and her head coming up after. everything that stood on her desk beneath her window were damp, not drenched to the point of not being able to save, but wet enough to see that they've been drained a bit of life.
sehwi plucked her books one by one off of the wet table, wiping them off and placing them in the corner of her room, open and away from the window where they could dry off. she made a note to herself to find her sister's old hairdryer that she left behind before she left for college. after leaving everything else in the corner, the one thing left on her desk was her jar of lollipops. the mason jar was filled with water, almost to the brim, with the lollipops floating at the top like ice. "ah," sehwi sighed to herself, "too bad." clutching the jar with both hands, she tiptoed over to her bathroom, careful not to spill the water on her floor, and dumped out the rainwater into the sink and left the remaining candies in the trash.
after wiping off her desk dry, sehwi plopped herself back into bed, almost begging herself to go back to sleep. she wanted to dream again. and after what felt like an hour, the pleads in her head turned into calling out jeongguk's name. she desperately called out for him as if he would appear again. like a mirage.
but when sehwi opened her eyes again, only the rain answered back, and alone she stood in her room.
⚘
AUTHOR'S NOTE
hi everyone! it's been a while;;; i missed you guys, how are you? hopefully you've been seeing my updates that i post on my feed^^ i wanted to apologize (again) for the long awaited update. something came up just a few hours ago and i suddenly had the urge and inspiration to write again. i hope you enjoyed it :-) sorry again, happy spring!
