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he wakes, head throbbing, rain thrumming on the window sill. the alcohol in his veins deadens his senses, his limbs, leaves him feeling like a torso. a glance out the window, the clouded night sky makes the world look so much smaller to hao, as if he could hold the city in his hand or wrap it in rice paper string and send it somewhere far away, and send himself too.but it doesn’t bring him any closer to jihoon.he doesn’t know how long he stares out the window, nor care how much time passes. all he can think about is the last time he saw him before he left. jihoon always says that he loves him, but to hao it sounds just the same as if he hated him. and the look in jihoon’s eyes as he left at the airport… the tears staining his cheek, the hardened look glazing over as if he didn’t recognise him. in that moment he felt his heart shatter.they fought, a fact he couldn’t deny, but they loved each other and had each other.but hao went away. he insisted that it would seem just like a few moments, a blink of an eye and he’d be back. a moment can make the difference between a man and the ashes he’ll become, it’s not as simple as that, jihoon had said, but all hao could hear was him leaving, wrapping his heart in rice paper string and sending it somewhere far away. hao’s body was leaving, yes, but his heart would remain with the man he loved, but that same man wasn’t willing to try.
i’ll be back in a moment, jihoon, can’t you wait for me?
he never got an answer.hao left.and took his heart with him. a world apart, yet their actions still mirror. intoxication, forgetting. consumed by a darkness so deep that it leaves them reeling for days. but he didn’t forget, he couldn’t. jihoon couldn’t forget. he would never forget. hao was the brightest star in his sky, no matter how far he drifted away, he could always come back.
stars lived for an eternity, but all it took was a moment for jihoon to dim the light in his hao’s eyes.he should have answered.hao left.he should have let his heart stay.but he wakes, head pounding, knowing that this is his fault. he stays in bed, knees against his chest, staring at the pouring rain, watching the world pass him by. all of the night’s effort of forgetting only to not be able to forget at all, he deserved to let the world slip past. to let those moments slip like ephemeral heartbeats. headlights, raindrops, love, hate, all pass him by. what does it matter, they all sound the same.homesick.he wanted to be beside hao, chest now blooming with an ache so deep he imagined it lingering within him for an infinite number of moments, as if it would never leave him. homesick. when had a person become his home? he let sleep take him, surrounding himself with the sounds of life, still passing him by. the raindrops hammer harder, near deafening against the window pane. but sleep still takes him, and if whatever force out there lets him choose his dream, he’d be beside his hao. can’t sleep.the room is cold, and so hollow without jihoon beside him. only a moment jihoon, he lies, how many moments have passed since i last said that? an infinite number. he watches the ephemeral heartbeats of this small city, the headlights, the raindrops, the static skyline. he imagines being beside jihoon, and it makes his hair stand on end and sends a shiver through his body. as if the deepest part of him, his soul, longs for it. if he could choose one dream, he’d stay right next to him, his jihoon. to be beside the half of him he didn’t realise was there until they were split in two.trains shuffle along their tracks, hao counts every moment that passes. jihoon counts them too. hao had said only a moment, perhaps he’d counted them wrong. one moment, or an infinite number of them, it left a hollow feeling in his chest, one that couldn’t be filled until he was beside him again.
he hopes tomorrow is different.he doubts that it will be.a light in the corner of his eye. his phone. a single message on the screen from the only person he wants to hear from, the throbbing in his head seems to fade as he reads it.
i miss you