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There’s a leak in the walls, or the apartment above, or maybe it’s the kitchen sink. It’s hard to tell. You shouldn’t get up to check. You really shouldn’t. Who in their right mind leaves the perfectly comfy and warm embrace of their comforter in search of a phantom drip? There’s nothing you can do about it, anyway. You’re not a plumber. This is a problem for Maintenance.
But if it is the sink faucet and you can put yourself out of this misery, shouldn’t you? It’s not like you can sleep with this incessant drip drip thundering throughout the entire apartment. It’s practically shaking the walls of your mind, a miniature earthquake behind the lids of your eyes. Checking the sink will give you something to do, a way to pass a whole minute before you’re plunged back into the sleepless abyss.
You move to get up but you’re stopped when an arm wraps around your waist, grounding you. Strong. Protective. It can be none other than Taeyong. He’s lying beside you, bundled up in the bedding, asleep – at least you thought he was. Did you wake him, or is the drip torturing you both?
“What’s wrong?” he mumbles, still half-asleep.
“You don’t hear that?” You don’t bother with an inside voice. “The dripping. It won’t stop. Do you think there’s a leak?”
A knot twists in your gut at the thought alone. Bills. More and more bills. Always a new bill or a hidden fee, not to mention the stacked charges, and this apartment complex has a knack for finding sly ways to pin damages on you, make it your problem, drain your bank account for their incompetence. And now you’ll be paying for a hotel room while Maintenance takes their sweet time repairing the issue.
It’s stressful.
You’re stressed!
What if the place is waterlogged? What if the whole structure needs work? You could be in that hotel for months!
And then there’s the possibility of mold. That could make you both sick! That could kill someone! That could–
“There’s no leak,” he says and despite the tiredness in his voice, he sounds so sure.
It’s reassuring… but the worries linger all the same.
“They could be hurt.”
He pulls you closer, tighter, secures you against his chest. “Who?”
“The upstairs neighbours. They could have died in the bathtub so it’s going ‘drip drip drip’.”
“Hmm.” Taeyong nestles closer still, his breath tickling the back of your neck. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“They’re morning shower people.”
“So? People can change.”
“Not overnight.”
“Is it really not bothering you?”
Your question hangs in the air for a moment before he shimmies his leg between both of yours and he slides his other arm underneath your side. With both of his arms wrapped around you, he pulls you into a deep embrace, practically squeezing your breath away. After a long moment he loosens his hold, but only enough for you to breathe without strain.
“I didn’t notice it until you mentioned it.”
“How? It’s driving me insane!” you huff, head sinking into the pillow as you welcome the sheer exhaustion threatening to wipe you out.
“I focus on something else.”
Holding back a quick retort and the scoff resting on the tip of your tongue, you try your damnedest to listen to anything else. There’s nothing as consistent as the drip. A dog barks in the distance, a cat yowls. The wind picks up into a howl only to lose her nerve and fall silent. Some kind of engine revs to life for a solid beat before it, too, putters and fades.
“There isn’t anything else,” you whine.
He chuckles into your hair. “Really? It’s my favourite soundtrack. You don’t hear it? It plays every night.”
“Stop teasing.” You yawn. At this rate you’ll black out but at least you’ll finally be asleep. “Just tell me – I’m losing my mind over here.”
Your eyes droop until they close and you’re on the edge of passing out when your entire world shakes with the thick plop of water hitting water. Anxiety wells in your gut. A puddle. If it’s the upstairs neighbour then that puddle will turn into a bubble and that bubble will burst into a torrential downpour all over your bathroom or kitchen or, Lord forbid, your bedroom! Somehow, someway, the water will roll above your head then pop! Your whole life you’ve built here with Taeyong, the memories and the mementos, the big step of moving in together, the future it laid out… gone. Submerged in an early, watery grave.
“Here,” he says as he places his hand over your heart. “Feel this.” You breathe deep. His hand warms your skin as your chest rises. You exhale and he follows, both with his hand and his own soft breathing. With your bodies pressed so close you can feel every inhalation. You fall into sync with him, exhaling as he does. “Now listen. Do you hear it?”
Try as you might, you can’t hear anything except…
His gentle breathing, serene and almost inaudible, a melody whispered mere inches from your ear.
And his heartbeat, slow and steady as it reverberates from his body to yours.
The song of intimate vulnerability shared between lovers.
“I hear it,” you murmur, afraid to speak too loud, to break the trance and fall victim to wandering thoughts.
“And you feel it?” he asks, his voice deep with oncoming sleep.
“I do.” But you’re unsure if you’re even speaking out loud anymore, losing yourself to the rhythmic drum of his heartbeat, to the evening of his breath as he falls into a peaceful slumber. One you’re soon to follow, your body relaxing as the worries cease and the thoughts slow to a trickle.
I feel it.
in the loneliest hours,
when consciousness slips endlessly,
he reaches for you,
his breath your guide.
your love for me.
in the loneliest hours,
when sleep tears lovers apart,
he holds onto you,
his love a lighthouse,
his heart your anchor.