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It seems to me that the dead only return for love or for revenge.
Who did you come back for?
― White is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi
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They asked, “Do you love her to death?”
I said, “Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.”
― Mahmoud Darwish
Seokmin takes a deep breath, before he remembers that that is something he doesn’t need to do any longer.
His mind is still swimming with the remnants of sleep — if that is what it can be called now — and he blinks and rubs his eyes against the darkness pressing down against him, the skin against the backs of his hands remaining black as he does so.
He can hear Jeonghan snoring slowly beside him, feels the air wash over the hairs on the back of his neck. A small, curdled part of him feels envious at Jeonghan’s slow breathing, at his easy resting. Seokmin can see Jeonghan in his mind’s eye, arms splayed above his head, mouth slightly open, eyelashes flickering as the room lightens gradually around them. His breath catches once, then again, a low whimper humming in the back of his throat.
Seokmin rolls over carefully, propping his head on one hand, elbow digging into the plush pillow. He lifts one hand slowly, lets the shadow pass over Jeonghan’s mouth, then brings a finger to brush over Jeonghan’s cheek.
Jeonghan sniffs, startles awake, and then smiles loosely, like honey. He sighs and stretches, tshirt riding up from where he’s tossed and turned in the night.
Tossed and turned like Seokmin used to be guilty of also.
Seokmin is sure that Jeonghan’s breath can hardly be considered fresh, but he leans down nonetheless, presses a kiss to his lips as softly as he can. He feels something murmured into his skin and smiles, able to guess what Jeonghan is saying, more or less.
They no longer linger like they used to, each day holding fresh promise, or their room holding too many weighty memories, sharp like shells on the beach under bare feet.
Seokmin retreats to the orchard first, collects the oranges that have fallen, inspects those that are ready to fall. He pulls the warm air deep into his lungs, holds it there until he forgets — or gets bored — and lets it back out on a silent groan.
He thinks of Jeonghan in his lab — or workshop, as he calls it — thinks of the inevitable cuts and scrapes that Seokmin will have to bandage or press a kiss into or tut over when he gets home.
He looks over to the cliff on his left. He remembers — in a vague, third-person sense — tumbling over the edge, watching the water grow in the horizon of his vision. Unsurprisingly, he does not remember anything after.
That is, until he blinked his eyes open to Jeonghan hovering over him, eyes wide and delicate, hope trapped behind lips clamped shut. He supposes it was not unlike what Seokmin did this morning, supposes that they piece each other back together in some small way each and every day.
He wonders if he went tumbling back over that cliff edge again whether Jeonghan would go to as many lengths to reach him again. He hopes, in part, that he has not been a disappointment.
The other part wishes he could be.
There is a wet noise from underneath his foot and he nearly slips, looks down at the crushed corpse of what used to be an orange, and realises that he arrived too late to save this one.