– bella gerant alii »
– @themidnightsiren »
when he was seven years old, kyungsoo visited the beach for the first time. with one bag for spare clothes and another for lunch, he and his mother had boarded the train alongside at least a hundred other passengers, finding a pair of seats by the window only out of the kindness of a couple who mentioned they would only be on the train for one more stop. (kyungsoo had given them a bag of honey butter chips as thanks.) he remembers hardly being able to sit still for the entire trip, fidgeting in his seat and struggling against the safety belt in every effort to watch cities pass by in a blur. he remembers sharing a bottle of yogurt milk with his mother, and he remembers the spray of salt-laden ocean water against his face as he ran across the beach, kicking up sand and shells and saturday laughter. at the end of the day, his mother had laughed and called him her little lobster, all in between gentle chides for not putting on sunscreen like she had told him to do.
(he laughed with her, and they shared a ham sandwich on the trip home.)
it’s not the same tonight, not even close, but he manages to catch slivers of those memories in the passing breeze. from miles and miles away, oversized vehicles have hauled cargo into the city from the incheon wharfs, crates and rusty trailers tinged with that familiar salty spray. if he closes his eyes and shuts out the faraway din of seoul, he can just barely grasp a whiff of the ocean, and for a while that’s enough to ease the nerves. his exhales are warm beneath the cheap face mask, just a little too hard against a slowly healing wound, but he can pretend it’s nothing more than the cool ocean water. for a moment, he can pretend.
from the roof of a half-empty warehouse, it takes a series of ladders and well-timed leaps to get his feet back on solid ground, the concrete chilly even in the summer evening. his play-pretend is over for tonight, gone with any vestige of the western coast, and his fingers are quick to find comfort in the lint and bubblegum wrappers lining his pockets. that comfort, however, is as short-lived as that distant saturday afternoon, slashed clean through with the tell-tale sounds of a struggle.
walk away, cries instinct, hammered into the marrow of his bones over ten long years. but hesitation wrests his heart from those greedy hands and guides him around the corner, wide eyes peering over at the scene unfolding. he finds two figures under the hazy curtain of moonlight, mostly concealed in the shadows of surrounding buildings. but when he catches a glimpse of crimson against near-translucent flesh, he staggers backwards and trips on nothing but quickly rising panic, falling into that fear with a single gasp.
