STAGE I: DENIAL with @neretiics
frankly, even he wasn't sure how this was supposed to pan out.
to make it absolutely clear, there were no rose colored glasses involved in the bigger picture. no visions of sparks flying, a serenade of violins materializing out of thin air, or the abrupt ding-ding-dings! like he'd gotten the winning ticket for the lotto.
ever a man of subtlety, the most he'd waited for was a small shift. a gentle, unimposing sense of clarity—like the first sunbeam over the horizon, the light lifting of morning dew. not a tall order by any means, if any cosmic entity of the universe is truly out there listening to anyone.
and eunho couldn't have been more convinced of its existence. because the very instant it had happened, he'd known before the full weight of recognition could knock the wind out of him. all it'd taken was one look. just one!
fate, generous as she is, had tossed him that singular, grisly bone at last.
it had gone spectacularly downhill from there.
the initial loss for words? a given, surely, because it's a delicate matter that requires processing. any and all sudden life changes require such pause.
but reality had wildly subverted expectations in ways he couldn't have fathomed. the blanched expression, for one, as she stared down at his beady bird eyes; the vividly abject horror, for another. the soured cherry to top it all off: the leather handbag that came swinging right at him after.
"sena," eunho starts again—this time at a polite distance of two meters behind her briskly receding form. his own is shed of the feathers from before, back to square one as a walking, talking human being. in his hands is the purse—her purse—caught right before it could deal its fatal blow. tries again, a little louder now: "it doesn't have to be like this."