the air is cleaner here in seomri. he can tell by the way it pours into his lungs, crisp and cold as it stretches within his chest and in consequence, how he feels more of himself. he thinks mother would’ve liked the magic of this town, so remote from the industrialisation of seoul that it spares itself from the rot.
and so the trees are left to grow, and they become tall and dense in number. the people here amble without purpose, each so absorbed in their leisure that they’ve left out the sorry eyes and hollow condolences they would’ve saved for him back home. and byeon bitna is here, in her home, leaving her door open for him to walk into.
“hold him like this,” jaehee demonstrates, an arm wrapped securely from behind the shorthair to grip his chin steady for the inhaler. they’re huddled in the living room, close enough that jaehee can feel her watching. still, he looks up to catch her eyes, and he tells himself it’s to make sure she’s paying attention. he rests his thumb over the canister just short of dispensing. “when you feel you’ve got a secure grip, press it and count to ten.”
perhaps in another life they’d be here in a home not unlike this one, fussing over something or another as a pot boils in the kitchen. in another life, she doesn’t leave and he doesn’t watch her go. but perhaps he’d gone about it all wrong. seoul is fast and loud with a tendency to ruin the things it touches. here in seomri, the air is cleaner. it is absent of rot.
jaehee pulls his arm gently away from cookie, reaches for his treat and holds the biscuit out. “you know, i never thought you were a cat person,” he confesses, a flicker of amusement in his eyes as he watches the cat struggle with his teeth, “but here you are in seomri, with cookie no less. it’s…”
nice? and what is? the fact that he knows so little of her? or that she’d left before they even had a chance to begin, and so he’d been left to expend all of his imagination just to fill in the gaps of her? or how, despite all of it, he’s here in her home, just content to pick up these bite-sized pieces of her?
perhaps it’s nice.
jaehee holds the inhaler out to her, hand a hair’s breadth away from hers and on his lips, he manages an encouraging smile, “think you can give it a go?”
MUCH ADO ft. @bergamor