Work Text:
Between the Lines (Part I)
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Gaon,
That I’m writing this will probably tell you two things. Firstly, I am not with you and secondly, those books you often saw me read taught me how to be eloquent with the written word. Or at least I hope I am, for this anyway.
You won’t wonder why the words you see before you now in black and white didn’t come from my lips, because you’ve always known me Gaon. That doesn’t make this a story, or any less true. You are deserving of not only hearing but feeling every good thing a person can lavish upon you, and for my failure not to deliver that to you I am regretful.
It won’t be a surprise that this will never reach you either, because in the face of the strength of emotion I have for you I am weak. Even writing that word feels unfamiliar and strange, but no less true.
You were unexpected. Your goodness and light conquered my darkness. You enabled me to taste care and affection, whether by the delicious food I miss every day that you allowed Elijah and I to enjoy, or whether by those foolish actions that you effortlessly delivered without an ounce of selfishness. Our house for the first time felt like a home with your presence.
For all those things, I am thankful. For what you brought to Elijah, and the guidance you tried to give me, I am humbled. As someone who has taken what I believed the world should give me, deserving or undeserving, to be given something that wasn’t simply taken so freely unshackled me from some of the chains that keep my heart closed.
It scared me, I must admit, the ease in which your key opened those locks. Power and influence was my world, keeping a distance in all ways and being on guard was second nature, and loving someone was not something my life sought. Everything was ice, cold and bleak. Mechanical and routine. I barely felt human, in a world that was barren and dying. The warmth that you showered upon us gave us life, Elijah and I, and colour.
All these things I have acknowledged and understood during our time apart. I think about you during the day, while I eat, while I am with Elijah, and when I’m out driving. I see you in the Edelweiss on the greens, I feel you in the breeze and I imagine you in all that lives around me. I wonder about you, I imagine whether you are taking care of yourself, whether you think about us, and if you’re still making those dishes for yourself. Then when I am alone at night, I think about you all over again.
And for that I am sorry. Perhaps I am capable of hurting you just by thinking of you.
Leaving you was one of the hardest things I had to do, I want you to know that. I didn’t just leave you. I anguished upon the decision, and I despised the necessity to do what I had to do and lose you as a result. I left a part of myself with you for always. That is why I am so incomplete here without you.
I am not a romantic. I am not hearts and flowers. I am not even poetry or love songs. This is not a love letter. Even as I write this, the words seem wrong and awkward. As though they barely scratch the surface of what I want to say. Or write in this case. It seems ridiculous as I am not even writing to you, or to myself or anyone in particular. All I know is it needs to come out, and here is where it will stay.
In my imagination you know all of this already in your heart. But of course life is not that magical or easy. And maybe you do know, or maybe you will never come to know. Even if you did, we are chasms apart. We always have been. I can never be good for you. You need happiness, Gaon. You need it to be nourished and survive. I grow and survive in the darkness as I have always done. In places that would hurt, damage or maybe even kill you were you to follow me there. You know that too.
I say this as honestly as I can. If I asked or allowed you to take my paths, thinking only of myself and of my desires, I would destroy myself watching you wither and wilt at my side as a shadow of yourself.
I want to change so much for you. I want to have you infused with me, become my lifeline as I become your blood. That’s the intimacy I crave with you.
You are the white and gold, I am the black and red.
Truthfully, I shouldn’t be writing this as it’s futile. My destiny is no longer where you are, but you live on inside me. In my thoughts, in my dreams and sometimes even in what I say and do. It will have to suffice because I can’t take the best of you to heal the worst of me anymore. You have given me enough already and suffered so much because your planet fell into my orbit.
To me, Gaon, you were a salvation. A goodness I didn’t think the world was capable of. You were light. You were what I needed even when I didn’t even know what I needed. I was surrounded by jagged edges for so long that I had forgotten tenderness, until you became like cotton wool against my skin.
Could you see into my mind, Gaon? Into my heart as I always suspected you could. Did you feel what I did? Did you feel that ferocity I was powerless to fight? Do you fight it every day like I still do? The feeling is more stubborn than you are, rearing up so often I haven’t the energy to battle against it repeatedly.
I tried to set fire to the memories I had as though they were made of paper. I failed. All I succeeded in doing is fanning the flames already raging inside me.
I don’t make wishes. I don’t pray. I am not a believer in miracles.
But if I did, if I were a person who engaged in any or all of those, it is you I would want for. It’s a selfish want, and an impossible covet, but if, only if I were a man who could ask.
I want to believe you will find your happiness, somewhere far away from me. I want to tell myself my heart will be comforted knowing that. But I will never be an angel, Gaon. It is only my heart, my world, and my bed I want you to share. Mine and nobody else’s.
So I will go on keeping these words on paper where they can fade with time, be lost, or destroyed. This way you will be safe. It is all I can do. My hand doesn’t want to hold the pen any longer. I can’t even bring myself to write down the most important words I harbour deep in me. I can't tell you how precious you are to me.
But I have a feeling that you know. Perhaps you have always known.
And maybe one day, I will open my door and it will be your face I will see standing there. You’ll tell me you were worried I was starving myself on Swiss food, you had come to see Elijah, and that you couldn’t think of anywhere else to go for your vacation.
But I will know.
That’s how we work, isn’t it?
Until that day that I’ve painted the imagery of so vividly in my mind, I’ll be waiting Kim Gaon.
~ 🌸~
Shakily, Kim Gaon sat down, fingers clutching the embossed paper with trembling hands as he allowed it to sink in. The scrawl of Kang Yohan’s handwriting unmistakeable, turning into a blur before Gaon’s eyes as tears clustered and spilt over his cheeks. Once more Yohan was turning his life inside out, wringing his emotions as he always had despite not having been in his life for months now. Logic crept into Gaon’s mind; Yohan never would have sent this. It was miraculous he had actually written what he had, but actually going old school and putting this in an envelope and posting it was not something the Kang Yohan that Gaon knew would do. Not for trivial matters of the heart anyway.
Gaon wiped his tears away and retrieved the envelope, scrutinising the penmanship that had inked his name and address carefully in the dead centre. There was nothing on the back, but it didn’t matter. Gaon recognised it instantly. Only one person could have gone to these lengths. He checked inside the envelope again, fishing out the small post-it note concealed within that contained an address with the same italic font as the envelope. Thank goodness for Elijah.
Gaon smiled, mentally radically making plans even before he had opened up his laptop and began searching for flights. Determined to take this to its conclusion, Gaon made the booking for tomorrow. Everything else could wait.
Whatever Yohan thought he knew, whatever reasons he had for not being forthcoming with his emotions and no matter how defiant Gaon would need to be, he wanted to hear from the man himself what he had just read.
Kang Yohan was wrong about one thing for sure; Gaon’s happiness didn’t lie away from him. His empty life and his heart could testify that. His blood pumping, and all his senses more alive than they had been since Yohan left, Gaon lifted the page and inhaled it as though somehow it would have some part of Yohan’s scent on it, before placing a kiss on the letter and pressing it to his chest.
All Yohan had to do was ask and Gaon was ready to follow. It was his choice to make, not Yohan’s – and he had made it. Kang Yohan would have a lot to answer for.
“I’ll see you soon, Kang Yohan,” he whispered....
*Continued in Part II When the First Snow Falls (I'll Come to You)
Thanks for Reading!
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