daybreak || minsung

Chapter 23

Jisung was my GPS on the way to the baseball game. He told me to turn onto streets I hadn't ever been down, unmarked paths I had thought abandoned. We ended up on a road framed by a hazy forest — I had no idea where it was leading us.

"How long is this gonna last? The game?" I asked.

Jisung shrugged. "Hour, hour and a half. We would play longer, but I figure you'll want to sleep at some point."

"That'd be nice."

"Speaking of — I grabbed a folding chair from my house. It's in the trunk."

"Um. Why?"

"So you can sit on it."

I blinked. "Will anyone else be sitting? In the box, or whatever?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'box,' but I'm pretty sure everyone will be up and around."

"I don't want to be the only one sitting."

He pouted and tugged on my sleeve. "What if you get tired?"

"Then I'll wake myself up."

"What if your feet get sore?"

"Then I'll get new ones."

He sighed.

"All right, park here," he said a moment later.

I stopped the truck on the side of the road. It was just sprinkling rain, but the sky was threatening. The trees reached up like they were going to slap the hell out of the clouds.

"The clearing is through the woods," he said, turning to me. "We'll run — if that's okay with you?"

"That's fine." I remembered the high of running — like riding an agile, flying rollercoaster — and was not averse to trying again.

He whooshed to my side and got down on one knee; I hopped out of the truck and hugged my arms around his neck. He stood up, holding my knees in place, and took off like an arrow. It barely felt like he was moving — we could have been standing motionless in front of a large fan and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. The butterflies in my stomach were the only give-away.

"It's over," he told me a moment later, letting go of my knees. I kept my legs clamped around him.

"I like hugging you like this." I kissed the back of his neck, and then burrowed my face into his shoulder. "I don't wanna stop."

He kept quiet. When I pulled back, I found I was turned around, facing him, and his hands were back under my legs, holding me closer. A gratuitous use of vampire magic, to seduce one's boyfriend, but it worked nonetheless.

"Don't stop," he murmured. He kissed my lower lip, kept it between his lips and tugged ever so gently.

I wove my fingers into his hair and kissed him deeper. We were moving for half a second, and then my back was against something hard. I couldn't make myself care what it was. I was lost in his touch, in his lips and hands and the pressure of his body.

I just wanted him closer. I wanted him as close as humanly possible — closer than that, so close that our edges blurred together — closer and closer until I forgot how to speak, how to move, how to breathe.

So I let my lips fall open, and it was hardly a second before he disappeared.

I dropped onto my tailbone with a thud and a squawk. (I didn't fall very far — I think he had already been on his knees.) I blinked for a moment, dazed and unsatisfied. Apparently he'd had me against a tree. I crossed my legs on the dewy grass.