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"That makes sense... After all, you have no parents, so you always did seem pretty starved for attention."
"Hey you addict!"
"Don't you think you ought to pay for swinging your fists at me earlier?"
"Siyun... we had no choice. We're sorry...!"
"Is that so? Then do your best. What can a high schooler even do on his own?"
"Let's just move on."
"What a useless boy."
... ... ...
"-un?"
"-yun?"
... ... ...
"Siyun!"
"WAKE UP!"
Siyun's eyes snap open as he jumps awake. There’s a yelp to his left and a soft thud. Like someone fell off of the bed and landed on the fluffy rug on the floor.
His head whips toward the sound, body tense and chest heaving.
"Oww," the voice mutters from the ground, "You really jumpscared me, huh?"
"Wha-what?" Siyun stutters dumbly at the sprawled figure, his mind still a reeling mess from the sudden shift from a terrifying nightmare to reality.
The figure sits up on their knees. "It seemed like you were having a rough nightmare, so I woke you up. Are you okay?"
...a nightmare. Right. It was another one of the usual ones born from those memories. Also, Siyun's sluggish brain finally catches onto the fact that the person is actually a she, since a voice as soft and sweet couldn't possibly belong to a man.
"Uh... yeah. Yeah. I'm good," is his intelligent reply.
The girl on his floor goes quiet for a moment before asking, "Siyun, who am I?"
What the hell does that mean? Doesn't she know who she is?
He tells her as much. In response, she laughs like he just cracked the funniest joke. Siyun's a little offended, but only a little because her laughter rings like a song in his lifeless apartment. It’s soothing, somehow. Strange.
"Stop laughing. What's so funny?"
She does, only to crawl over and climb onto his bed. Oh wow, she's bold.
"How come you keep forgetting your own girlfriend, hmm? This is the fourth time this month."
...what? Wait- wait WHAT? Girlfriend? His girlfriend? When-how-what the-....oh.
He's frozen like a statue when she scoots closer to him and a slice of moonlight from a nearby window falls on her face.
...pretty.
A small pale face with a pair of full pink lips quirked up in an amused smile, but her doe eyes that look up to him are sincere with concern. So familiar he'd swear he could draw her with his eyes closed—using only his fingers to trace the lines on paper because how familiar his fingertips would be to every curve and contour of that face.
So pretty.
It dawns on him then, like a spark of electricity going up his spine, into his rusty brain to finally get it working right and fill in the blanks.
The girl- no, his girlfriend, Jeongmin blooms with a lovely smile as she watches him go through all five stages of grief.
"Judging from that look on your face, should I assume that you finally remember me?" Jeongmin—his sweet Jeongmin asks, her voice full of tease.
Siyun buries his head in his hands with a long, pained groan. He's such a fucking idiot. Maybe he should go jump off of a bridge at this point. Because just how does one even keep forgetting their own girlfriend over and over like that? Is he starting to get early stage dementia at the ripe age of eighteen?
What's wrong with him?
"Die, die you stupid fucker," he mutters under his breath, tugging at his hair in mortification.
Jeongmin sighs and grabs his wrists, pulling them away. He lets her, still looking down to his lap, too ashamed to meet her eyes.
"Stop pulling on your hair. You'll go bald."
"...sorry. Sorry, Jeongmin," he mumbles pathetically.
Jeongmin takes his hands in hers, her smaller hands soft and warm against his cool skin. "It's okay. I'm not mad at all. I just think it’s funny how sometimes you tend to forget your entire life for a couple minutes upon waking up."
"And I shouldn’t because it’s stupid is what it is," he shakes his head, feeling distressed. "I even woke you up in the middle of the night over a nightmare like a little kid. You should be mad." Jeongmin is too good for him.
Her hold tightens. "I don't care about that. It's really not that serious. And you are not stupid for simply having a natural reaction to a nightmare. This happens to everyone at least once at some point in their lives. Hell- sometime even I forget where I am or who I am after a long nap. It's not weird at all." Her voice grows firm, "So, try saying that again and I'll actually turn you stupid."
Despite his sour mood, Siyun can't help but snort at the threat.
Typical Jeongmin. Always working her magic words. Always so forgiving, so patient with him. How to tell her that she's already made him smitten silly?
"You're laughing. I'm threatening to turn you stupid and you're laughing."
He raises his head and looks at her. How cute. She's pouting like a chipmunk, cheeks puffed up with a dust of pink. Makes him want to bite.
His lips stretch into a grin, eyes crinkling, and he knows his feelings clearly show on his face from the way her cheeks grow pinker. "You could do so much worse Jeongmin, and I wouldn’t even bat an eye," he croons.
She shudders, looking like she just choked on a lemon, and he wants to laugh. Good. It's even better now since she knows firsthand that he's always been serious with everything he says regarding her.
"You crazy fucker," she huffs. "Are you a perverted alien? Stop being so..so-"
"What? Being in love with you? But Minnie, I'd rather die before I can stop loving you~"
"You crazy crazy fucker," she slaps his shoulder in vexation. "W-what's with the mood shift?! And here I was being nice to you. It's 2 a.m. for God's sake!"
Snickering, he falls back on his pillow while pulling her along in the process, and rolls over to his left, trapping her against his chest. She falls with a oompf, and before she knew it, his much larger frame swallows her.
"Pfft- are you mad? I was just telling the truth. I'm sorry, please never stop being nice to me."
She says something unintelligible, wriggling against his chest. He stops snickering after some time and loosens his hold on her, just enough for her to move her head away so that her face is no longer squished between his pecs.
"Geez! Are you seriously trying to smother me to death?!" She loudly complains, breathing heavily.
Siyun doesn't answer her. Instead, he takes his time raking his eyes over her face, memorizing each detail by heart.
The silvery moonlight illuminates the upper half of her body, making her glow in the dark. He can almost feel the warmth of her apple red cheeks even without cupping them in his hands. Can feel something tickling within his chest from the way her nose scrunches up cutely in annoyance. Can feel heat slowly trickling into his gut when her doe eyes glare up at him in irritation, a glassy shine on her pupils. Then his eyes fall on her slightly parted rosy lips as she pants breathlessly, something inside him snaps.
Suddenly, he's impossibly close to crossing the distance with lightning speed. Their noses touch as they breathe in each other's scent. Just a tiny tilt of either one's head, and their lips would be touching in a feather light kiss. He feels nearly smug from the way her pupils dilate with shock.
But Siyun manages to hold back in the last minute, loosely held together by a string of reason.
"Jeongmin," he whispers, barely a breath away from her lips, "I lied earlier. Actually, I had a really scary nightmare, and I'm not feeling good at all."
Jeongmin's eyes widen, any trace of annoyance melting away as concern takes its place.
"Then how do you really feel?" she asks, voice no more than a whisper.
He is truthful.
"It was so bad that it made me wanna curl up and die. If you hadn't shaken me awake then I... I don't know what I would've done."
She frowns, lips pursing with worry. Oh, how he loves the ease of reading her like an open book. How closely he holds the comfort of being able to gauge her sincerest feelings to his heart.
He waits for her response with bated breath, forehead resting against hers. Anticipating.
A beat of silence passes, and he can practically see the gears turning in her pretty little head while she digests the information. It's so adorably fascinating—he could stare at her face and observe her expressions all day and it wouldn't be boring in the slightest.
Jeongmin licks her lips, eyes flickering away for a second to organize her thoughts before she settles to look into his own, her gaze kind and honest.
"Siyun, you know I'll be by your side no matter what right?" she carefully says. "Whatever is hurting you, or-or anything that's bothering you, you can share it with me. I need you to know that no matter what happens, I'm-I'm here. I'll be right here, okay? So please... don't ever think you're alone in this. Don't bear all the burden alone, please?"
There it is. The sincerity which he so loves. The words he always craves to hear from her. Words that never fail to evaporate all his fears and anxieties into thin air.
He swallows thickly, heat crawling under his skin and pooling in his gut. His heart trembles as the air in the room seems to grow warmer.
Ahh fuck.
He's really the worst. Jeongmin is so lovely, so kind, so honest, and he? During such a tender moment his mind is full of such filthy thoughts. He is so hopeless.
"Siyun?"
She's looking up to him with curious eyes. Still so worried for him, nervous about what he'll respond with. In the end, Jeongmin still remains the saner one between them. Maybe that's why she can say those pretty words with ease, and widen her eyes in innocent concern for the likes of him. Without having a clue what those words do to him—what they make him want to do to her. It's unfair. Why did Siyun have to be such a filthy sick bastard?
"Siyu-"
"Do you mean it?" He mumbles dazedly, lips pressing against her chin.
Her breath hitches at the contact.
"Ye-yes. I really do." Poor Jeongmin. Still so shy from barely a kiss to the face despite all the times they've made out before.
I love you.
Makes him want to bully her a little. Just a tiny little bit. With love.
So, he licks her chin, just a tiny flick of the tongue, and the choked gasp she lets out is delicious.
"I'm gonna kiss you now," is all the heads up she gets before he cups a warm cheek in his free hand and slots their lips together.
I love you.
Kissing Jeongmin is like drinking nectar straight out of God's hand. And Siyun is a lowly mortal greedy for a taste in hopes of gaining some form of divinity, so that he can become worthy of her.
Jeongmin.
She clutches onto his shoulders like a lifeline, eyes fluttering shut, trembling in the glided cage of his embrace. He doesn't like to close his eyes when kissing, preferring to observe instead. Poor Jeongmin, always so sensitive even to the softest touches. But Siyun doesn’t want to linger. He wants to crash into her. It's both a desperate want and a need. A hunger so familiar.
Jeongmin.
And they crash. Lips seemingly fused together, and he's licking, nipping, sucking like he tastes the sweetest ambrosia on her lips, like there's drug laced on her tongue, getting him addicted to the high of pure euphoria.
Keep your word. Don’t betray me.
She smells like his body wash, tastes like the mint of his toothpaste. The oversized t-shirt that slips past her shoulder to expose a delicately flushed collarbone is also his. The feeling of her pomegranate scented hair that tickles his face, the soft moans and gasps she lets out whenever Siyun plays with her tongue in a certain way, her every breathless gasp in between kisses from the lack of air; that bad habit of holding her breath while kissing.
I love you so much. Please, stay with me.
It's perfect. She is so fucking perfect. So beautiful. So sweet and soft and kind and strong. She is all and everything he's ever needed, everything he will ever need. If this is what he can wake up to after every assault of the nightmares, then he's willing to suffer every single night for the rest of his life. Even if she never comes to love him, even if only his sufferings are what make Jeongmin pity him enough to stay.
If that's what it takes, then he will gladly suffer until the day he dies.
And if you walk away…
I'll never forgive myself for the things I might do.