if she tries hard enough, it’s almost easy to forget she’s homesick. the lights blinking along the skyline aren’t so different from barges on the midnight horizon, returning to their district. a shade different, but saeri’s feet are bare against cold metal and if she squeezes her eyes tight enough, it feels like she’s back on the lighthouse, waiting for the boats to come in. the filtered air from this high up isn’t any less unfamiliar, but it cuts just as sharp as the sea breeze can.
and part of her district has come with her, she reminds herself, her smile soft when she finds beomseok behind her. “i’ve only had wine once,” saeri replies, looking down at the glass by her feet. her father makes wine glasses and champagne flutes, but they rarely see the liquid gold they’re meant to hold. it’s rich, thick as blood and darker than, not at all the sort of spirit she’s snuck tastes of. the moonshine of their district is sharp and clear, and sweetened over stolen giggles with kitae. but there’s no moonshine in the capitol, only the glare of opulence and a burn when she swallows her wine. “i don’t think i like it very much,” she admits.
she knows his reputation, the whitewater dazzle of the ocean shaking up the capitol, leaving a shipwreck of treasures in his wake. but beomseok, up close, looks more like the tide at the end of the day to her, that inescapable pull to the ocean. the space between them is as thin as a fishing line, and she can feel the warmth beneath that unbroken, fragile surface tension. it keeps her there instead of pulling away. saeri wonders what the tide has seen, ebb and flow of conversations in the capitol. wonders if the tide misses home—and tries not to wonder if there’ll still be a home to miss, come tomorrow.
“the view is pretty, isn’t it?” it’s a relief the city isn’t cruel in its architecture. it helps to stave away the fear, as does the wine. cold and bitter, but not unkind. “i’m grateful.” even though she knows they save that for the games.
“to you, too,” she adds, turns to the once-victor and her eyes soften. there are colourful corals tucked into her hair. to represent their district, the stylist had explained. fragile and fickle, like the memories she’s trying to hold onto. saeri slides a piece of one from her hair and holds it out to beomseok, her hand stopping before they make contact. a gift—or penance—of sorts. it feels futile to ask to be remembered, or to pretend they might return to the lighthouse, but. the word hangs between them, spoken unacknowledgment. “visit the lighthouse more often, then,” saeri asks of him instead. her eyes are bright, reflecting pools of city lights and twinkling smiles, and memories unshed. “you looked happy there.”
the capitol’s darling wears a dimple on his left cheek. it comes with every teasing smirk, bright as the sun they liken to the twinkle in his eye. and his marbled likeness stands here—heart of the capitol’s museum, victors exhibit—all ten feet and six inches tall. but in person, the things to remember are the sweet nothings he whispers in one’s ear, that faint glimmer in one’s eyes as they eagerly take a bite of his hook.
park beomseok always knows what to say.
they know this much in the same way as they make him of rubble, when he’s always been the ocean’s tide.
and what this means is there’s always a part of him that they’ll never get to see. it’s little, but it seeps right through the gaps of their fingers like saltwater, and in this way, he tells himself that they’ll never truly have him. this part of him is raw, sure, lacks the structure they’ve come to know, but it’s the same part of him that would come home to four’s beach on that rickety fishing boat, well past midnight. he’d chuckle in relief as he embraced kitae, and he’d see her then, an arm’s length away, smiling softly back at him.
“it wasn’t the lighthouse.” he holds his features in a frown, accompanies it with a small headshake. it’s guilt, like how she’d been there every night, an understated, steadfast comfort to both him and kitae, and yet he’d been so quick to toss her aside. how he’d bet all his coins on his brother and doomed her to die, no matter the warmth of her smile against his saltwater shiver, no matter the twinkle in her doe eyes that reminds him too much of ocean and moonlight.
“saeri, i haven’t—” so here lies the capitol’s darling, choking on the gravity of his confession. he places his wine glass precariously atop the balcony’s banister and runs his fingers through his once well-kempt hair, eyes darting past her gaze because he doesn’t know if he can look at her. to stare into her endless doe eyes, or to catch the sickening sight of his reflection in them, “—there’s no more time—”
he shuts his eyes. pinches the bridge of his nose and there’s that composure coming back, the one that the capitol finds familiar. “just… just come back, okay?” the rhetoric comes out soft, defeated, as his fingers slip gently around her extended wrist, “just promise me you’ll come back.”
he places his hand beneath hers, wraps her fingers around the hairpiece.
“you can give me the coral then.”