'' get some sleep. '' // heokyu x liya
living life — that's something that is supposed to be easy, natural. you go through stages of life as if you are leaving a task done and entering another. milestones achieved, dreams conquered. but it rarely counts the ones that are supposedly not reached, not finished, and the distance it grows when you realize they were left behind with no resolution. much can be said about that. philosophers might theorize. psychologists will try to explain. but ultimately, humanity must face that reality is uncertain all the time. maybe those desires are connected to something you worked for or just hoped would happen eventually, but somehow they never did, and you are left wondering, what if. it's universal and not necessarily sad. it's also human to move on, to continue living despite not fulfilling what you thought you might have. some people struggle to, others don't. and liya had to learn, like any other person, what was to be hers and what wasn't. sometimes it's an easy fit, like how she can't stand the pain of getting a tatto, she can never see herself keeping something so permanent on her body, so she naturally knows she will never get one. others are harder to come to terms with like working half your teenage life to be a pop star in a famous group and that ultimately not happening. and having to accept both as part of herself, her life, her journey.
it's complicated, she understands that. she is not someone who doesn't settle into her reality — quite the contrary, she likes to think she handles it well. her mother always used to say to others that nothing could upset liya, she just was one of those children that everything is okay. and that is true, she is not easily bothered by most things.
if it was not supposed to happen, then it's okay. liya had to believe that. part of her story, part of her personality was of someone who understood. someone who didn't necessarily have it figured out what life was pretending to show her but who did anyway.
however, some things you just don't leave behind. some dreams don't fade quietly. some people don't either. like him.
once upon a time, they barely made it — two ends of different spectrums within the same galaxy. they hovered around each other, not knowing when to collide or even if they would. somehow, someday, they aligned. liya was happy to know how heokyu was doing; at that time, she could spend hours hearing his voice, and it would come in words of affection and comfort. she wasn't sure if he was a token of the time and things she lost before the whole 7sins fiasco, or if he represented a path toward the elusive future ahead of them. it could have been both, either, she was grateful for.
but mostly, he understood her, like when she pretended she understood things when in fact she didn't, he noticed that. and did what he had in him to hold her hand and draw a better view of something in time and space for them. it's like there was a point, an objective, even if they were not sure what it was but it felt as though both of them were working towards it. but one hesitant step in the other direction — is that all it takes for it to not feel the same anymore? is it moving on from an unaccomplished road? or is it just choosing a different one?
regardless of trying to make sense of it, she had to move past — like she always did. there was no upsetting liya. she had to come to terms with it. someday, maybe. but not today. today she would sleep on it. she nodded her head as he said, "get some sleep", then accepted his forehead kiss like you accept a prayer from above and fell on the soft mattress. her body shivered as she placed the comforter on top of it. her eyelids, heavy with thought, shut completely. but she still heard his footsteps moving around her. she didn't have to see him to know him — even if far away. the sound of the shower running wasn't enough to soothe her to sleep like it did before. instead, she thought about home, and what it would mean to go back.