Work Text:
“I want to pretend.” Ji An's breath hitched as she said it. Hesitated. Settled mid-air. Low.
Her eyes were downcast. She rarely let herself chip away. Come to think of it, she hardly let the small Cha Ji An rise to the surface. The abandoned, unsure ten-year-old in pig tails.
And so, her breath hitched. And she blinked furiously when Hyun sighed. Stubbornly, she closed her eyes when he tipped her face towards him.
At a distance, a cricket chirped. Someone's footsteps resounded on the steep pavement, shuffling, like they were drunk. The air gently nudged at their skin. Goosebumps – but that was the gentle finger beneath her chin.
And Hyun's breath hitched. Ji An was standing a step higher, and her head only reached his chin, almost his mouth. She was not looking at him. It did something funny to his stomach, this exchange. This exchange – a few ways from the lamp-post, a few ways from her home, under the waning moon – was their intimate space, where her earnest presence tugged him towards her (as she always did). His stomach fluttered, and his thumb reacted, brushing the skin below her lower lip. He felt it quiver.
"Pretend? Pretend what?" he whispered. His heart ached slightly, because he knew. They both did. He could pretend a little, however. Pretend he did not know.
“Pretend we are normal people, who met under normal circumstances. Like one of those English movies you watch – where we are the protagonists though our life isn't elaborate. And there’s no Lee Joon Young – there never was – and we're both there, and…”
“Then we wouldn’t have met, the chances of it –” (They would live different lives, they wouldn’t have a reason to meet, the probability of a coincidence would be small, they wouldn’t be bound to confront the other, she wouldn’t have a reason to chase him, she wouldn’t become what she was to him…)
“But what if we did meet, became friends, then we –” she sighed. “I want to hold on.” And with a moment’s pause, where she swayed back and opened her eyes: “To this. To you. Like you’re leaving and I must hold on and not let go. And that sinking feeling that you will leave, as abruptly as you entered my life…”
It bubbled inside Hyun, a warmth that he once found peculiar; it engulfed him. “This is not our last meeting,” he said in a low voice, like the words were meant for their ears alone, a cherished secret. It couldn’t be their last moment. He did not plan things that way. He did not care for her so little. For he was a small boy, often. An unsure ten-year-old with the air and responsibilities of an adult, but who needed just as much as a child. He wanted to hold on too.
Ji An tried to smile. “It better not be,” she replied, but her voice grew breathier when his finger brushed over the corner of her mouth. She reacted and cradled his hand, caressing his knuckles, like learning a pattern.
Yes, he wanted to hold on. And her thumb made small circles on his palm. He brought her head closer, tucked her under his chin. They were close for now. In their space. Etched like a picture in this time. And Ji An’s arms wound around his neck slowly, so she could breathe him in; one of his went around her neck and the other around her waist, raising her from the pavement to her tiptoes and meshing her into his torso. Later in time, they would take off their shoes and their coats and their worries and return to this space. He knew that, and she imagined. And his fingers ran through her hair, and her breath stroked his neck, sending little shivers into his spine.
He wanted to hold on, and be held on to. And oh, she did the holding so well. They used to be children once – and they were children still, weren’t they?