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Nothing lasts forever. Eunseok knew this better than anyone. Yet this lingering feeling, he knew it was wrong, but it still hovers within his heart. The soft voices, the constant whispers, to bring him back.
On regular days, Eunseok could ignore them, pay them no mind. However, on some nights they get louder, transitioning into yells, into a dragged out drawl, the consistent pester to bring him back.
Today particularly they were very timid, slight whispers, voices fading in and out of his head. But they still say the same things, the very same things Eunseok wants to do. He isn’t sure anymore if he wants to do it anymore, but the voices adamantly linger, gripping him, telling Eunseok to bring him back.
Sewoon dragged him through the crowd. Bodies flushed against each other, sweat dripping off their clothes like they just ran in the rain, shoes randomly discarded along the floor. This was a terrible place to clear his mind.
Eunseok assumed Sewoon would take him on those infamous, so-called ‘healing’ trips to the countryside, somewhere like Jeonju. Those atrociously humongous backpacks with enough food to last a month, those ungodly large tents for 8 people. Eunseok much rather that than this god awful, suffocating club, it was packed enough to make him claustrophobic.
It doesn’t matter anymore now. Eunseok gets shots of whiskey at the bar counter, downing multiple glasses before he finally makes his way to the dance floor. The rush of alcohol pumping in his blood, heartbeat louder in his ears, eyes idly glazing over the crowd.
His body is almost as though it wasn’t his own, moving crazily on its own, active against the flow of the people pressed against him. His clothes stick to his back, sweat adorning his shirt for everyone to see and his hair planted onto his face.
An hour in and Eunseok swears he’s never been this close to this many people before. Some random guy yells at Eunseok to speak louder, Eunseok just screams into his ear which ultimately scares off the small crowd around him. He takes this as his cue to finally get another drink, hopefully take a breather from this stifling air.
Making his way to the bar counter, a young boy bumps into him. Eunseok was sure he heard the boy crying and a mumble of sorry that was drowned in the midst of loud edm music and yelling. Eunseok turned around to see the boy and he was so sure his eyes must’ve been playing tricks on him.
That familiar brown hair, that tall figure, slender waist and long legs.
Eunseok almost ran up to stop him.
Shaking his head, Eunseok ignored that thought. Continuing his walk to the counter, a couple others almost tumbled into him. Muttering a quick sorry as they moved on, this time he paid them no mind, scared he might mistake them for someone else.
Eunseok wasn’t sure what time it was anymore, his watch long discarded across his bedroom floor, his clothes halfway through coming off from his body. He groaned, shuffling his way to the bathroom while nearly falling into the toilet bowl. He mutters a quick cuss at Sewoon before ultimately deciding to settle into the shower, sitting on the cold tiled floor as hot water poured over him.
Clearly alcohol isn’t helping Eunseok clear his head. The sore pain in his legs, consequence of his dancing and the continuous flashback to that familiar tall figure in the club. Eunseok swears it could have been him but seriously, that’s a crazy coincidence and Eunseok isn’t willing to take that chance of hope because what if he’s wrong?
Eunseok would rather die.
Eunseok mumbles to himself about it not mattering. He’s sure, it doesn’t matter, like for real.
Sungchan was like a pandora’s box. A hopeful ray of sunshine. Something you couldn’t fully get your hands on. He was like the rainbow after the rain, bright and colurful but too far out of reach. Eunseok knows he may never fully have Sungchan, but with the way the soft breeze escaped the class window and into his brown hair, how the harsh golden sunlight encapsulates his glowing eyes and the strained smile on those pink lips. It was hard not to look away.
“Hi I’m Eunseok, in case you didn’t hear the whole introduction earlier”
And he smiled back, a whole toothy grin, eyes forming crescents. Eunseok smiles back.
And it was like they were meant to meet each other, with the way Sungchan’s head fits easily into Eunseok’s neck when they lay together, or the way Eunseok’s hands were meant to easily cup Sungchan’s face and squish those cheeks.
The press of each other’s thighs, the bumping of their shoulders and their eyes locking onto each other, never for once looking away. It was that moment Eunseok stared into those round eyes, a kind of feeling that for that moment he only saw Sungchan, no other but him.
And maybe this was enough for Eunseok, those glowy eyes staring deep into his soul, the kind that could read you. Maybe he didn’t need more and Sungchan smiled effortlessly, a reassuring feeling that maybe for once, he would stay.
He isn’t sure what actually wakes him up, his 4th alarm blasting in his eardrums or the 12pm sun thats bursting through his windows. He should not have that downed that many shots last night, he doesn’t even remember even changing his clothes. He’s grateful that he at least remembered to shower.
Eunseok checks the time and starts a string of cusses as he realises he has a class in nearly half an hour.
“Fuck fuck FUCK Sewoon and his ideas”
He dashes around the room picking up whatever piece of clothing he could find. He’s almost run out of cuss words by now, starting to transition into Japanese (which is definitely applaudable considering most of his Japanese was from Shotaro whom he hasn’t seen since high school). It doesn’t matter, he’s halfway out the doorway already within 3 minutes.
Stumbling through campus, he bumps into multiple people, muttering a half-assed apology trying his best to dash to his class on time. He almost misses that same familiar tall figure with the brown hair walking right by his side.
Almost.
Eunseok does such a quick turn he actually hits several people on impact but he’s kind of late, that figure disappears into the crowd. His broad back somehow thinning and fitting in the swarm of students, the brown hair lost in the sea of hair. Seemingly, Eunseok deduces he’s just never meant to see the other again.
Dejectedly, Eunseok continues his traipse to class, a kind of heavy air settling upon him.
And that’s when Eunseok sees him again. And this time, he’s sure.
Those brown eyes, so glowy under the lights with the roundness that seem to bring Eunseok in. The soft pink lips, that no matter how much of a frown or a scowl he stuck in your face it made you want to kiss it. Eunseok breathed in sharply, what was he doing here?
Somehow time seemed to stop, Eunseok couldn’t move.
It’s as if his eyes were betraying him, like a mirage of some sort appearing in the middle of the desert while he thirsted for the longing of water - or Sungchan.
The earphones in his ears, the eyes with a faraway look and the mouth unintentionally mouthing the lyrics. That nostalgic memory suddenly wrecked into Eunseok, where the sun glistened across Sungchan’s face, illuminating his eyes that had sparkles dancing across it with the earphones–
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re just the same as before”
He probably mustn't have heard it, with the way Eunseok can hear the bass boom into his ears - but Eunseok thinks it’s okay because everything Sungchan did was okay, maybe great even.
Sungchan just raises his eyebrows, clearly unimpressed by whatever Eunseok was trying to pull off. Sungchan furrows his eyebrows as Eunseok decided he doesn’t want to say anything more.
But Eunseok is always taken aback by Sungchan. His face just makes Eunseok frozen in time, the delicateness of how his face is structured. So gorgeous and Eunseok realises he’s been staring too long when Sungchan gives him another pointed look.
“- and if you pick dare, we dare you to kiss Seri”
Eunseok lunges at the senior. His fist makes contact with a cheekbone and he’s sure he heard something crack. The other fist comes almost immediately, this time his aim is slightly off centre and hits the nose. Quite quickly he sees red liquid dribbling down, sending him into a frenzy.
It takes not just Sungchan but Shotaro and Anton to pull him off the senior. Eunseok feels like a bull in the ring, the way the senior almost looks like a red flag. Thats the only colour he could see, the red hue of the fire, the red blood trickling down the senior’s nose. Eunseok yells and tugs at the arms holding him back, his legs kicking the air. Fucking piece of sh–
“– boyfriend won’t even know”
Eunseok blinks.
“This game is bullshit. We’re going back to the tent”
He grabs Sungchan’s hand and drags him away. Eunseok’s pretty certain he heard the senior yell something about being gay but he’s too worked up to even be mad. He doesn’t care, he really doesn’t, he doesn’t, he shouldn’t, he won’t.
Eunseok feels somewhat defeated, standing outside the tent, hand just still on the zipper. He can’t really bring himself to do much. Thinking, thinking, thinking about Sungchan, Sungchan and Seri. He almost crushes the zipper under his grip.
“Eunseok?”
He blinks again. Making a sheepish smile as Sungchan laughs, his eyes forming those crescents and the hair falling messily over his eyes. Unbeknowingly Eunseok reaches out to brush it out of Sungchan’s face, which almost tempts him to leave a peck on his forehead.
Eunseok shakes that thought away as he forces himself to look away from the obvious pretty Sungchan and walk into the tent. He collapses onto the tent floor, body spilling over the sleeping beds, arms and legs spreading all over. Sungchan just giggles at Eunseok’s antics, a soft sound that hums the right way in Eunseok’s ears as the rosy cheeks blush a little harder.
Sungchan decides to settle beside Eunseok on the ground, their heads so close, Eunseok could move just an inch and their cheeks would be touching. Eunseok wonders how Sungchan’s cheeks would feel next to his, maybe a cool touch, something like the feel of ice cream on your tongue during the summer heat as sweat pours down your forehead.
“The sunbae must’ve given you a headache, at this point your hair will turn grey in no time”
Sungchan presses his lips into a faint smile, bringing his arm up to feel Eunseok’s hair in his fingers. Threading his fingers through each lock, Eunseok wants to just pull the hand down and kiss each finger slowly and—
“Sungchan”
Eunseok doesn’t think the other heard it. His voice came out too low, too much of a whisper that it was impossible for Sungchan to hear. But much like Eunseok was just made to hear Sungchan, Sungchan’s body was trained the same way to be attentive to anything Eunseok.
Those beautiful, almost bead-like brown eyes that glint like marbles under the mellow moonlight stare at Eunseok. Maybe it was his imagination, a hallucination even, but Sungchan seems to shift closer. Closer. Closer. One small movement and—
Eunseok doesn’t know what he’s doing. He couldn’t stop himself. Softly, he presses his lips onto Sungchan and god, Eunseok he won’t be able to stop. But the way Sungchan’s lips just slot perfectly onto Eunseok’s, was soft in all the ways it could be sweet, the aftertaste of marshmallows still clung to the edges of his lips.
He lifts his hand to caress Sungchan’s cheek and that finally gets a reaction out of the other. Sungchan pulls back a little, eyes wide, which makes Eunseok realise what he’s gotten into. He freezes. He starts cursing in his head.
“I… I’m sorry”
Hastily he gathered his items and scrambles out the tent. He’s so terrified, he can’t even bring himself to look back. He’s afraid of what Sungchan might say, he’s afraid that after today they may never return to before.
Eunseok thinks he heard Sungchan call for him but it doesn’t matter now. All that matters now was getting away as far as he could. As far as his legs could take him. The cold prick of the night weather and the looming towers of pine trees surround Eunseok as he catches his breath.
Eunseok fucked up big time.
Eunseok wanders around campus mindlessly. His thoughts drift in and out of the present and past. He may as well just sign up to learn how to fly the way he floats past everyone, eyes glossing over everything, unfocused as his legs bring him from place to place.
This soon backfires when he bumps into someone head on that sends them both tumbling backwards. The collision sends jolts through Eunseok’s, something like an instant sobering. But when he sees the person on the floor with a familiar light brown, a trademark soft smile, Eunseok thinks he’s hallucinating again.
“A-anton?”
The boy turned his head so fast, eyes googly eyed the way it was so big and round. A look of suspicion followed him as he eyed Eunseok up and down.
“What the hell”
Eunseok scrambled to Anton as he started to walk away. This is actually terrifying, the thump of his heart terrorised his chest the way it beat too harshly, a warning it was going to fall out soon. His hands became clammy, sweat perspiring at his palms like condensation gone wrong and fast.
“Look, please Anton”
Anton stops.
“Leave me alone. Do you have any idea what Sungchan’s gone through?”
Eunseok doesn't move. He watches Anton’s back as he walks away, and this he sees an unlikely shadow of Sungchan appear on his back, with the same look Eunseok left him with. And haunts Eunseok all the way to the cafeteria. Every corner Eunseok takes he’s there, every portion of food he gets on his tray he’s there and with every chair he passes by he’s there.
It’s menacing. It’s like something worse than a sick joke, a running ghost plaguing his every thought. But when he passes by a certain bench, he sees Sungchan but properly this time. A solid body eating. Kimchi fried rice going into his mouth, each bite looking as savoury as before.
Without thinking he pauses at the bench. And he knows he looks like a freak the way he has a full black outfit on, his eyes unwavering, eyes trained on Sungchan like a stalker. It’s definitely unnerving for him, and for others the way he’s getting stares, but Sungchan’s seriously here and not a figment of Eunseok’s delirious hallucinations and dreams.
Sungchan’s definitely saying something, his eyes are slightly burning, a finy fury that would’ve been cute if it weren’t for the overwhelming anxiousness that’s pushing at him wave by wave as he realises an uneasy waiting game settles between them.
“Kimchi fried rice?”
Sungchan’s eyes widen and the haunting of the ghost he saw on Anton’s back actually materialises. Then Sungchan fumbles for his things, the same haste Eunseok had before and it breaks the many glass pieces of Eunseok’s heart that the shatters seem to pierce his skin the way his body aches when Sungchan decides to leave, the same way Eunseok decided to leave.
Unconsciously Eunseok reaches his hands for Sungchan’s wrist. But his eyes make a droopy look, a dejected face adorns his once beautiful smiles.
“Eunseok”
And he lets Sungchan go. Because this is Sungchan and he was Eunseok. And it reminds him of how far Sungchan really was, the rainbow he admired at the end of a stormy rainfall, something so bright and big but too far up into the sky to fully be able to have it within reach.
But this time, the phantom of Sungchan’s widen eyes no longer linger but the melancholy droop of his eyes plague Eunseok as he watches the boy turn his back and walk away. And once again he’s reminded nothing will ever last, not even the one constant he’s always depended on.
The rest of the day passes on as a blur, the hours blending into each other, a constant stream of nothing and everything happening at once. In the end Eunseok finds himself in the shower again, hot water trickling onto his face and down his neck, heating his body up.
He stares forlornly at the wall, which ultimately just produces a terrible shape of Sungchan’s face from earlier motivating him to just exit the shower quickly. Nothing ever goes well for Eunseok, he doesn’t even know why he tried because what’s the point when he knows it won’t ever work.
But speaking of the devil, his phone lights up as an unknown number texts him. Barely paying attention he clicks and scrolls almost robotically, eyes skimming the messages lazily until the name “Sungchan” pops up. Instantaneously Eunseok straightens his back like he were in an army, droplets of sweat forming at the very top of his forehead and palms becoming a slippery mess.
Yet what shocks him the most was Sungchan’s self made proposition of… meeting up. No jokes, no sarcasm and definitely no running. This feels like another sick joke, another running plague of the mind. Eunseok is getting increasingly clammy. His mind is feeling clutched from all sides, a strong pressure pushing him into a wall.
However here sat Eunseok, by the bench under a tree. He realised these days he’s always feeling some sort of nervousness. The kind that takes over your body in one gulp, or a tsunami that engulfs the tiny beings in its path like it doesn’t matter. And so Eunseok sits, his feet tapping the ground, his fingers clasped tightly together while he almost trembles waiting for Sungchan.
So when Sungchan does arrive, Eunseok’s heart kind of blooms and warms up in a way that fire blooms to melt glass to mould it into shapes, in Eunseok’s case a Sungchan shaped heart.
“I thought you wouldn’t come”
Sungchan takes the empty space beside Eunseok and if Eunseok could just throw away the voices and the regrets that follow him and just take Sungchan in his arms, mumbling “I love you” over and over, he thinks he might be happier.
Yet Eunseok’s mouth moves on his own, like his control settings were set on automatic. A video game gone haywire, a phone that’s been hacked, Eunseok just blurts it out.
“I missed you”
Of course Sungchan wouldn’t say a thing but he’s got this almost blank look on him, like his eyes can’t focus on him, like he’s just looking through Eunseok. And Eunseok can’t help it when he grabs Sungchan’s hands and launches into an apology monologue, much like a video game truly gone off the rails.
But Eunseok was afraid. The night of that day blanketed Eunseok’s feelings, a fear that if he unravelled it the way you unclasp the lock on a pandora’s box and all great misfortune befalls Sungchan may also be the great fortune that befalls Eunseok. But when Eunseok left, the pain of knowing what he left behind left cracks in his glass woven heart that couldn’t mould together no matter how much he stored away the box.
Without realising, tears have fallen from his eyes, non-stop streams flowing easily as he peers into Sungchan’s eyes. Without needing any words, Sungchan just pulls Eunseok into his arms which sends Eunseok truly crying, shamelessly wetting Sungchan’s shoulder.
So when Sungchan pulls away, Eunseok’s fingers never stop gripping the hem of his shirt. And when they just stare into each other, Eunseok thinks Sungchan is the most beautiful person he’s ever laid eyes on. Beautiful shining eyes, the pinkest lips and a pretty rose pink tint on his cheeks that never cease to amaze him.
“I love you Sungchan. I’m sorry it took so long to say that”
“I hate you Eunseok”
And Sungchan crashes their lips together, the sweet aftertaste of something and nothing flood Eunseok, the cushion of his soft lips that were just suited to fit Eunseok send him into a frenzy. And like a balloon that lost its air, Eunseok almost deflates. Maybe the voices were right, bringing him back was the best way to go.