heeyeon + soojung [ things you said that made me feel real ]
( PROMPTS )still accepting!
the will to live is a luxury that many take for granted; the ability to dream without fear is a blessing disguised as something achingly common. but she doesn’t face those nights every time the sun goes down--but she shakes and shivers through them just enough that the restless hours show through shadows under her eyes, in the hollows of her features.
past tense: those shadows are retreating. they were there.
present tense: they are almost gone.
she sinks down, weightless, to bridge the gap that exists between them. it is also the only bridge that links them, time flowing like water underneath that link that binds them to each other, inexplicably--fatefully.
sometimes, it takes her hours of wandering just to find her, though.
soojung can’t see heeyeon, can’t find a trace of her in these woods that they always find themselves in. but she knows that the other woman is here. if not, then she’d be tossing and turning in some pitch dark place where her own skin seems to tear at her insides. she’d be struggling to breathe, fighting to force her eyes open, waking up in a cold sweat with a heartbeat too fast to be healthy.
instead, she is simply wandering; the rustle of the leaves hum the melody that her heartbeat keeps time. the sun shines through the canopy above her, printing quaint shapes into her hair, over her skin, temporarily.
it feels like heeyeon is avoiding her, tonight.
but she knows how much these meetings, how much these woods, mean to soojung.
heeyeon’s helped her in more ways than she knows.
soojung wants--needs, to see her tonight. because there are things that need to be said. there are revelations that she needs to share--but most of all, she misses her.
her voice echoes something hollow, as if the syllables and sounds that travel through the air know of the unspoken, undefined, rules that soojung are about to break. “meet me while we’re both awake.” the air seems to quiver with the anticipation of heeyeon’s response--as if it’s alive, and waiting with bated breath. “you’re so much more than you give yourself credit for.”
ducking under a low-lying branch, she tucks her hair behind her ear, eyes continuously roaming around her, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl that’s meant everything to her--especially now that soojung knows she’s alive.
the flowers felt cheap in her hand earlier that day, while she was awake. too gaudy and bright for the soft colors of the east ward where she’d gone to visit her mother. lingering feet and maybe, an intuition that begged to be listened to, had her passing by a name on a door, of another room, that she knew.
“promise me you’ll try.” there’s an ache to her voice that she recognizes, a desperation, a longing. “i’ll meet you in our dreams--forever and ever, if you’ll just try--”
emotions are inherently selfish. they impose themselves and blind people, make them forget all sense of others to be validated through the self. it’s not fair for soojung to ask this of heeyeon. she doesn’t know the circumstances that forced her into that stasis--
they find each other, as they always go.
her hair is as wild as the look in her eyes, but not nearly as hopeful as they shine. fingers tangle quickly, intimately, as if they’ve done this a million times (and perhaps they have, who’s counting?).
when i count down to one, you are going to awaken;
every night that they meet--though the rhyme and reason behind which nights they do will forever be a mystery-- heeyeon’s welcome is one that makes her heart stand still, then sing.
the feeling makes something in her soar.
heeyeon gives her courage, she makes her feel invincible.
feelings like the ones that she posses are not supposed to survive without the sustenance (the truth, the physicality, the expression) to properly nourish them. but the intimacy of a secret, shared world of their own makes this plane of existence just as important to her as the one she spends her physical life in. the roots of her emotions are rooted in something as old as time, they are ancient, and powerful; they are magic and they are a vital necessity, a human right.
her eyes open too soon, but she remembers the expression on heeyeon’s face. her eyes open to the morning light but she’s still remembering the contours of the woman’s features, the mouthing of a response that she didn’t manage to catch.
“meet me here,” soojung draws her knees up, arms wrapping around herself as her blankets pool around her waist.
