>-- ` in plain sight ; woong & ahyoung
Undoubtedly she would persistently argue against the statements he made about her. He could list of truths, only for her to attempt to debunk them when they correlated to herself, and there were seconds where he contemplated if she was right, if he was blinded or misguided by her glow that couldn’t be found hovering over any other person, or if she was the one with damaged eyes. Certainly though, he had never gone this far, not with his words or his actions, never reaching forward prior to this day or speaking in a tongue he hardly recognized as his own. Perhaps he had been poisoned, had previously ingested a potion that prompted him to tell her what came to his mind with minimal censorship, to let the walls of his mind erode in the presence of the person who could grind his organs into dust, never to be a part of a single solid form ever again.
Regardless of treading away from the relationship they had, of classmates that studied with one another and engaged in the occasional conversation of their lives or of unrelated topics, he knew Ahyoung. He could predict the defensive reaction and the nature of her initial retorts, the front pages of the young woman who wasn’t predictable, but as it was so like her, the girl with not only her head in the clouds but her entire body as well, disconnected with her pursed lips settled into an aggrieved expression. This was only the side of her he could see clearly though, the rest was concealed by proxies, paradoxes, cutting of his respiration all over single sentences that resolved her inability retain him, the words laced and sewn with carnival print.
In a state of flaw and vulnerability Woong’s jaw became ridged, metal pieces within the structure of his skull. The shift in demeanor was slight, hardly noticeable, like the expanding circles of his pupils and their sudden contractions, the bend of his knuckles, hands becoming restless, but they were all affected by the same poor reaction; agitation and thoughts that spiraled out of control. He noted how difficult it was to watch her like this, when one moment intensified she was now exhaling delicate puffs of the heavens, blatantly unfocused whilst coiling strands of her hair on her finger, spinning and apparently dissecting the depths of a sky with no ball of fire and gas to hide its siblings dying in the background.
Stargazing was always considerably morbid with the knowledge that outer space was a cemetery to those twinkling, distant lights. When the confession escaped from the cobweb corners of his thoughts he wanted nothing more than to fix his mouth shut with a torch of fire, to take silence as the consequence to his imprudent actions. He’d deserve nothing less, so when Ahyoung’s voice returned on a delicate cord he took his gaze away, becoming forcibly fixated on the lines printed on the notebook paper, guiding thoughts in methodical organization. Where did his confidence go? Had it dissipated the moment he meandered past a line, vocalized the thoughts that should not be ventured to? Honestly, it was a trait he rarely regretted, but in her presence his brain whispered to him that he should dutifully avoid the truth, lest he shatter something precious in his hands.
The transmutation of her speech delivered a shiver to his spin, a sensation of ghost feathers running alongside the bone and stiffening his posture in turn. She was right, where his feet were situated held the aroma of pending doom, brimstone and gunpowder perfume. There was the desire to escape, to sprint without thought in one direction or another, and perhaps that wish was enough to convince him to drag his eyes upwards, but it was too insubstantial to convince his metaphorical body to budge from its stubborn balance. Opposed to breaking form he found himself with a jaw beginning to slack, then steel transformed into rubber by her verbal magic, or maybe it was partially because of how she, like himself, needed minor pain to anchor herself – the act of pressing her teeth into her lip.
She herself didn’t earn her a title of feebleness. Although Ahyoung’s thoughts floated without paying heed to the laws of gravity they reminded connected through gossamer threads, and only occasionally did something sever the fibers. Her body language however changed on an accelerated lunar cycle, and the smile she donned with the sentence that bid the topic its end, it put air pockets in his organs, cavities to be filled with smoke, fire and ice. Woong couldn’t return the gesture, yet he thought he knew Ahyoung enough to be assured that she would understand, comprehend the reason why it was difficult for the ends of his lips to curl for her when within his mind were whirlpools and the shift of tectonic plate, how when bestowed with her trust he didn’t know where to place it, or if he should return it with haste, before fatality visited him.
However, the clock’s smaller hand had already made a complete journey from its beginning to its end, and without noticing it he was forsaken in the company of fate. “I will.” He could promise this, that when his thoughts were no longer resembling perplexing brambles, but taut lines, he would be met with revelation and from there deciding if he was unworthy or excessively weak to breathe Ahyoung’s oxygen would be a step easily taken, at least, this is what he hoped. Woong held his gaze for a few seconds longer, the moment pregnant with the emotion of gratefulness that he could not express, and when another handful of seconds past he banished his eyes downward, focusing on the text and topic of pure, uninfluenced, physics, and his following sentences wouldn’t drift from the topic nor would they hold any hint of hesitation. It wouldn’t be until they would stand with their work finished, parting for the evening that he would dare mutter another thought of something other than equations and astronomy; the words hushed and made of the aftertaste of sweet pomegranate seeds.
“Goodnight, Ahyoung.”
[ end ]
