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The sound of her soft, even breathing is the only sure sign that Seongmi is still there with him, still alive. Seven fidgets restlessly in his seat, golden eyes firmly set on the blinding neon greens of his computer screen. He hasn’t typed a single word since he stormed out earlier, and he still can’t bring himself to code a thing. His mind keeps straying to Seongmi, to hair the color of hot chocolate and eyes the color of falling leaves in autumn.
She’s beautiful, he thinks ruefully.
He hasn’t stopped thinking that since the moment he first saw her, pixelated and small on the CCTV feed, and Seven can’t help but wish she wasn’t. If the small smile that lit up her face when Yoosung said something silly or when Jumin completely missed a joke weren’t so breathtaking, maybe he wouldn’t be here - unable to work, unable to concentrate, unable to force himself to consider anything else but her brilliant autumn colored eyes and the lively spark that dances through them every time she smiles.
A soft curse escapes his lips, and he falls back against his chair, running fingers though his messy hair. It’s tangled - he knew he should have brushed it right after he showered - and the sharp tug of his fingers trying to pull themselves free forces a soft since from his lips. This is fine, he tells himself, frowning as he feels himself ripping a few strands of hair out with his hands. That pain will pass quickly, but the unrelenting ache that he feel in his chest still remains, as harrowing and ruthless as ever.
This is all her fault.
Before Seongmi, Seven had never wanted for anything. Not constantly and painfully and with his entire soul, at least. The passing wish for happiness was normal; he’d find himself in the middle of an algorithm when he’d stop, wondering for a brief moment if his life would ever mean more than the computer screen before him. In that moment of weakness, Seven would press the dry, fleshy palms of his hands together and ask God if he could hear him. It always passed, though, like the caress of a cool breeze in the middle of a blazing summer. Luciel Choi had long since accepted the relentless summer heat - the living hell he resided in - and the soft whisper of hope, so cool a breeze, only came rarely, and never stayed for long.
Seongmi is like autumn. Sunny, but refreshing, with laughter and kind words in as much abundance as the real autumn has of blissfully cool winds and gentle rains. Seven knew from the moment she first spoke that there was something in her that was leagues different from the unforgiving fire he has resigned himself to, and at the cool touch of her endless reassurances and eager jokes, he found himself unable to let go. As summer finds itself idle, with its only purpose to sweat itself into endless toil and misery, autumn whispers with kind words and gentle winds to let sun-soaked leaves rest for the season, to let those who once burned fine solace in forgiving shade.
She is the rest he wishes so desperately to let himself have, but even with her sleeping right behind him, Seongmi has never felt so far away.
Seven sighs, fighting the urge to turn around and face her. Part of him reasons that she’s sleeping; there’s nothing he can say that will have any consequence when her ears have long since chosen to leave the real world in favor of dreams. The thought is comforting as it is agonizing. If only he could be selfish. To pull her close instead of pushing her away, to whisper a hundred truths to her so that she might never forget him, even if he knows, in his mind, that forgetting him is the only way this can end with her still alive. There are a hundred things he would tell her, would whisper against the curve of her lips and into the shell of her ear, with her own warm breath against the skin of his cheek, but Seven knows that such selfishness will only end in hurt for them both.
If only it didn’t. If only happiness wasn’t so foreign a concept to him, he thinks to himself. Seven bites at his lip, lowering his laptop screen halfway. He turns hesitantly in his chair, tentatively laying molten gold eyes on her sleeping form.
She’s beautiful.
He wishes he could hate her. Things would be so much easier if he could
“Seongmi,” Seven says softly. Her name tumbles out of her name before he can stop it, but the way it rolls off his tongue, falls off his lips and flutters listlessly into the dully illuminated apartment air, feels perfect. He tries to banish the thought before it can take root, but the feeling of her name on his lips worms itself into his mind like a virus, scrambling the painstakingly compartmentalized code he had used to form the iron walls he hides behind and threatening to tear everything he thought he stood for to shreds. Why does she always do this to him?
Seven runs fingers through his hair again, tears out a few rebellious strands and grits his teeth past the brief jab of pain.
“You’ve made a selfish man out of me,” he tells her quietly. “God tells us that if we humble ourselves, we’ll be raised up, so I tell myself it is okay to suffer. But you make me want to chase happiness that I know I don’t deserve.”
Another sigh. Seongmi doesn’t stir. Seven almost wishes she does. He reaches out, runs his finger carefully against a loose strand of her hair. This is the closest he has ever been to her, he notes sadly. And even then, this is probably the closest he’ll ever be to her. One day, he will be forced away, by circumstance, by his work, or by the unavoidable ultimatum of her safety over his happiness, and she’ll never see him again. The realization makes his chest ache.
With a sigh, Seven pulls away hesitantly, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. He draws in a slow, deep breath and turns back to his computer. When he tilts the screen open, the neon greens are blinding, filling up the space before and behind his eyelids with ease, forcing any remnants of hot chocolate brown and cool autumn beige from his eyes, but never from his mind.
Autumn always moves forward, preparing a sweaty and tired world for the untainted whiteness of winter, but the burning summer he is stuck in will never end. It was only for a moment, but Seongmi was the cool autumn breeze that got lost under the harsh glare of his summer sun. Something wonderful for him, but undeniably temporary.
“God, if you can hear me,” he mutters softly. “You would let her forget about me.”
Seven rests his fingers against the worn buttons of his keyboard.
“And God, if you are kind,” he adds once more, “You would let me never forget.”