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The smell of rain in the night was always a reminder of loneliness.
The loud sound of the rain stumbling down from the sky woke him up in the middle of the night. Probably, there was a nightmare involved as well, he couldn't really tell.
He was sleeping. He was sure he was sleeping, and the second later he wasn't anymore.
It did that, sleep comes and goes. That's it, ever since he has been living alone.
He sat up on the bed speedy, his fists clenching around the white bedsheets, the eyes bawled out like he had just seen a ghost. Whatever he was dreaming of, it wasn't kind.
His breath caught up fast in his throat before he looked around, just to learn that there was nothing to fear: the rain was outside, it couldn't hurt him; and whatever monster he had dreamt of, it was in his head.
His eyes fell shut as a melody entered his mind without permission.
It was an old song, that went like "the monster's gone...." or something. He could have sworn that his mother would always sing it to him when he had troubles sleeping.
He couldn't remember it, and some minutes later, he gave up on thinking and opened his eyes again, giving himself to his weight and falling back dramatically on the bed.
He decided: he would've tried to catch some sleep.
And that's when he began turning on the mattress helplessly, in the darkness, in a bed too big for one person.
The blankets followed him everywhere he went, wrapping around his waist like they could've never detached, in a way that - after some turns - Seonghyeon didn't understand anymore.
"How do I detangle from this mess now?!" he asked himself when his hands trace a triple knot that he has made with the sheets. Heat started rising, so he takes off his socks only moving his feet, irritated. He still wouldn't sleep. His arms go numb when he tries sleeping keeping them up, so he shifts again. The rain started falling harder, heavier outside and Seonghyeon felt it washing him whole, keeping him awake, even if he had a ceiling right above his head.
The drops feel like a million thoughts that kept his brain working, awake, even when he feels that he is sleepy, even when his eyes close by themselves. It felt like all of his body was against him sleeping, and he didn't know why.
His new hyperfixation was the ceiling now: he stared at it in his pajamas, hoping that at a certain point he would've got tired of searching the differences in that monotone dark wall, and he would've fallen asleep like that.
It was all wrong. All what? Something was definetly wrong.
He couldn't sleep. He just had to abandon to that thought, it's fine, he had already done it a billion nights before.
After half an hour of bed-rotting in search of the best position, he finally gave up with an exhausted sigh.
No sleeping for that night, it was declared, clear like the moonlight outside.
But he turned once more hopeful - but no.
He just falls like a dead body on his arm, facing the other bed side. Just the sight of that spot empty, without a picture lying right next to him, exchanging warmth with the mattress, made him feel isolated.
Whose bedside was it?
The bedside of someone Seonghyeon could hug anytime he wanted when he was with him; the bedside of someone who wasn't home in that moment, who was abroad; the bedside of the most gorgeous man Korea has ever seen. The bedside where Keonho would always sleep before his departure.
The bedside had been a haunted corner ever since, empty, longing for the owner's warmth just like Seonghyeon.
They were almost the same, him and the mattress.
Seonghyeon felt a wave of sadness letting him down, as fast as the sky turns gray right before a storm.
Now there was no chance he was going to sleep.
What a sad sight.
He tried to ignore it, forcing his eyes to look further, in the back, but he couldn't pretend that space didn't exist.
That was Keonho's space, and he didn't cross it, it felt like a law.
Seonghyeon stood there, lying on his side, facing the other side of the bed, illuminated by the moonlight that filtered through the window beyond.
The rain fell harder, and Seonghyeon felt the weight of it on his back.
"Keonho" was a silent whisper, coming out of his mouth, before tentatively sticking out his arm and letting it rest on Keonho's space.
Then his name was repeated again: maybe the whisper could have reached Canada, the school Keonho was in, before turning into a breath like many others. And maybe Keonho would've felt it, air stroking his cheek, and would've though about his boyfriend in Korea, who was missing him dearly, who was massaging the ghost of his warmth on the bed that used to be theirs.
Seonghyeon was going nuts.
An idea broke right though him, a remedy to his loneliness. He jolted like a ray of electricity was striking him and moved under the bedsheets to reach his phone on the mattress. Impatiently, he checked the hour, the only light in the room.
3:00 A.M.
He would have called Keonho.
He would have called Keonho and gave him a goodmorning.
For once, he let his eagerness win.
Seonghyeon moved his thumb at the speed of light and hovered it on the screen to reach the contacts button; there was no need to search for Keonho's number, it was always the first on the list, the only contact in his favorites, the last person he texted.
He tapped and called, but first he glanced one more time at the conversation they were having: last message, 12 hours ago. Which meant 50 million years in Seonghyeon's time.
The realisation hit when the phone made a first, long beeeeeep
Seonghyeon jolted again on the bed, jumping just a little, freeing himself from the knot in the bedsheets like magic.
On the second beep, he brought the phone to his ear.
"Seonghyeon-ah?"
It was Keonho's voice, the one Seonghyeon had been longing for months. And it was calling him by his name with an interrogative tone, probably confused by why he was getting a call from Korea when it was 3 AM there?
He was probably worried about his boyfriend, and it made the older's chest flutter.
He was thinking about him, he was worried about him.
It was one of the few certainties that Keonho hadn't forgotten him. Not because his boyfriend was not loving or caring or kind, but because Seonghyeon had issues entering in someone's life and being permanent like ink.
Every pen drains at a certain point.
"morningg!" he sang Seonghyeon on the phone, stretching to turn the soft abat jour on, or else Keonho would not have seen him properly.
Keonho finally connected decently, posing the camera on a surface Seonghyeon couldn't quite tell.
Soon, he realised that Keonho was sitting at a table, in a place that sounded like the cafeteria judging by the loudness coming from the phone, and was eating salt breakfast like an English man. Except that he was staying in New York and that made absolutely no sense.
Finally, the camera focused on Keonho's bright face which, despite the early morning, showed no imperfections. Or, if it showed any, Seonghyeon would have never known.
His toes curled in the sheets at the sight of Keonho: defined eyebrows that harmonised perfectly with his dark eyes, no bags underneath. His hair were a bit messy, but nothing that a comb couldn't repair.
Keonho was beautiful in all his flaws and strengths.
To Seonghyeon, he was ethereal under the white light that made his lips glossy, puffed from the sleep.
In a strobe, Keonho took a bite on his würstel and asked concerned.
"You can't sleep?"
It was so sincere, so caring it made Seonghyeon smile.
"I just wanted to tell you goodmorning" he shrugged and sent him a blowing kiss from the other side of the world.
Keonho mimicked: capturing the kiss in his fist and bringing it to his chest, then acting like an arrow had carved open his heart, "dying" on his chair.
His laughter was sincere, heart-felt, warm. But someone from put of the frame laughed too not just as warmly "God, I cant handle it at this hour in the morning–"
Keonho came back to life and started smiling even more with mischievous, jokeful eyes.
"Who was it??" in the meantime, Seonghyeon asked, unsure of what was happening exactly.
"Wait, imma show you" giggled the older boy, flipping the camera and revealed a hoodied boy with brown locks of hair spiking from underneath the hood.
Seonghyeon didn't even need to look at him twice that he dragged "Martin—".
Keonho flipped the camera again, too fast for the Internet to keep up immediately.
"He has been insufferable for the past 6 months, love. SIX!" he lamented, holding up his hand, but counting with only five fingers for six months.
It pulled a cute laughter out of Seonghyeon which probably Keonho would have never heard from Canada, but maybe he would have felt it.
"He steals my freaking laundry bonus coins–" tried to say Martin, but Keonho cut him off.
"You just leave the coin unattended inside the machine, man. Of course, imma take it (?)" Keonho looked at Martin, beyond the phone with an obvious expression, a frown.
All that Seonghyeon heard was Martin frowning and then a "I need more coffee", but by then, Keonho had turned to him again.
"So! Why are you not sleeping?" he pointed at Seonghyeon with his finger in a parental tone of voice. Seonghyeon had never told him he had troubles sleeping, so there was no real answer.
"Nothing, it is starting to get warm at night" his hand worked like a fan, gesturing, but Keonho didn't look convinced.
"Turn on the AC" he suggested, crossing his arms on the cafeteria table and smiling.
Yeah, it would have worked if only the temperature was actually the problem of Seonghyeon's sleep deprivation.
"And why should I listen to the one who doesn't pay his house bill anymore only because he is in his "Erasmus"?" he mocked through the giggles.
The younger boy whined, a frustrated, playful smile tugging at his lips.
"Ah, come on, it's the same if I am not in the house!"
"It's not, I miss you" Seonghyeon pouted, meaning every word of it. He made the sentence short, making it understandable that he wishes he was there with him. That sometimes being so distant was not fair, that only thei tumultuous love would not have kept them closer.
Keonho was a bus drive, an ocean and a flight away from Seonghyeon.
He would have reached him but he didn't have the money. It was so frustrating.
Right on the sweetest point he started to feel a lump in his throat, tears pressing against his palate, hurting. He needed to stop thinking about how unfair it was .
Before he could contain his emotions better, those were swept away by Keonho's brightness.
"I miss you too"
Seonghyeon looked up and found Keonho staring down at the table, his fingers fidgeting around a napkin in front of him.
He looked sad.
"Just...Don't let it be a reason to starve yourself of sleep" with a signed smile, he looked at the camera again convinced, with a determinated stare like he had to convince someone.
"I sleep! Don't worry!" lied Seonghyeon, trying to reassure his boyfriend. But reassuring someone who was on the other side of the world was tough.
But it was hard to say when Keonho wouldn't stop staring at him with those worried eyes.
"Seonghyeon-ah, I know you are not really fine, you can't hide it from me. Your bags are dark like you haven't slept in days"
Seonghyeon felt like someone was slowly digging inside of him and was uncovering every single thing he wanted to keep to himself.
Those words. Who would have talked like this to him again?
Nobody, absolutely nobody.
He could see right through him, every little thought of his, every little concern, emotion.
It was passed right through him like a knife piercing a ghost.
Unaffected.
But Keonho noticed. And Seonghyeon knew that he noticed.
And maybe Keonho knew that he knew.
But the reality was that nobody had to worry for nobody; Seonghyeon would have worried about himself and done nothing about it.
"I want to kiss you again" he said before he could think about it.
It was like a cry for help, like he was a fugitive on an island waving at every single ship passing by the beach like a desperate man, yelling that he was hungry, that he couldn't take it anymore.
Keonho couldn't see anything like that or else he would have fallen out of love; who wants a miserable man as a boyfriend?
You know what? Seonghyeon was so miserable that if Keonho ever were to tell him that he had cheated on him, Seonghyeon would have told him that he did the right thing.
That he was right about wanting to find better.
Seonghyeon thought that he was always taking up too much space and time, that he was a burden and that at some point everyone would have felt hatred towards him.
They were just really good at hiding it.
Keonho solved his tension with an artificial laughter; it came out silky because it lagged right in the middle of his smile, cutting his laughter in half.
"Really? Then when I get back I will kiss you so many times you won't feel your lips!" he giggled.
Seonghyeon felt reassured, and diverted when Martin came back with another groan.
"My goodness, shut the fuck up–" lamented Martin like he was being tortured.
"Uhm, Shh! You are the single one here" Keonho shushed him making a whole new scene which Seonghyeon didn't mind at all admiring.
"I am working on it, God! I told you!"
"Wait wait wait— What?? Who?!" Seonghyeon just had to jook in the conversation.
Keonho brought the microphone of the phone close to his mouth and whispered " It's Kim Juhoon from metereology...".
Seonghyeon frowned "Metereology?! Is that a thing?!"
Keonho pouted "At least he is not into....I don't know, Catholic studies typa thing".
"Stop, Godnesses, you are bullying me ugh" scoffed Martin, pretending to act offended.
"God, love, you should see his face right now, he is, infact, a tomato–"
Martin grabbed the phone out of the blue and flipped the camera " If I tell you to break up with him, listen to my words! Cassandra was telling the truth!".
At that point Seonghyeon was dying of laughter, all curled up on the bed with his phone in his hand, slamming the other palm on the mattress.
"Oh, shut up, you don't believe him, love, do you?" asked Keonho mischievously, with that little laughter inside.
"I don't, I don't" coughed Seonghyeon once he was done laughing.
They stayed in call for 5 minutes more, talking about Keonho's classes, about how pretty Canada was.
And all the time, Seonghyeon was trying to keep aside the bell that still rang in his head: " See? You made him worry. It's all your fault".
For once, Seonghyeon decided to tell that bell to shut up, and right when he was about to listen more carefully, Keonho said "Love, Go. To. Sleep. NOW! Like, I mean I love you and I would keep talking to you until sunset, hut you have to sleep!".
Seonghyeon's eyes started getting teary.
Why? He had no idea. He was just being over-sensitive.
He sniffed and repelled it all once more "Yeah, I will".
"And don't think about me" stated Keonho.
"...Okay" Seonghyeon's tone was unsure, uncertain, not really probable he could have stopped picturing Keonho on the other side of the bed.
"And eat healthy"
Keonhomoved the phone close to his face, and now Seonghyeon was looking at him from a really silly angle.
"And turn on the AC, okay?"
This guy.
This guy made him giggle like there was no tomorrow.
"I will..." he promised, smiling at the camera with sad eyes.
"Until then...Byebye!" Keonho greeted, keeping the phone close to his face, playing with the angles like a puppy.
Seonghyeon was stopped, monotone, the same angle that framed his pale, sleepless face. And while he talked he tried his best not to loos at himself, not to realise how miserable he was.
How did a boy like him even end up with a boy like Keonho?
He has no idea, all he knows is that one day, Keonho would have gotten bored. But obviously! Seonghyeon could not blame him!
There was nothing interesting about him, nothing to talk about.
He worried over people like everyone was their son, he was bad at trusting, he could cook, or knit or do any other kind of activity everybody did to feel cool. And he was even kind of short now that he came thinking of it.
How the hell had Keonho fallen in love with such a failure?
A failure even when it came to sleep.
Seonghyeon would have thought about all of this later.
After countless "I love you"'s and "You hang up first", one of the two finally hung up the phone.
The room shrank all at once, as soon as the phone, which had been all along the only source of light in the room, turned off.
Keonho's voice was ringing. Seonghyeon didn't really know if it was in the whole room or in his ears.
He just missed him.
Now he had seen him.
Looking around, the room even felt darker, smaller, but at the same time too big for only once person. The moon was tall in the sky. The same moon that would have flown upon Keonho's head. Maybe Keonho would have looked up to the sky and thought the same thing.
With that smile of his', those manners of his', those words that he used to make everything feel as light as possible.
Seonghyeon thought about every single one of them, like those were written on the ceiling he was staring at.
Sprawled on the bed like sea star, breath after breath, he blinked like he was waiting for something to happen.
Liek he wouldhave magically fallen asleep.
Keonho was living in the day Seonghyeon wasn't living along to, and it was just so insufferable.
I he could have, if only he could have, he would have got on the first plane to Canada, and would have made his life a teen romance movie, with the "boy" hugging the "girl": and then the baggage falls to the floor as everyone looks at them and at how adorable their deep, emotional hug is.
But even then, Seonghyeon would have felt like a burden.
All his life Seonghyeon had tried his best to be tolerable. So hard that he forgot how to be himself.
In time, Seonghyeon learnt that one will never love him as much as his personal space. And so that was what Seonghyeon was doing: giving back all the time and space that he had aways occupied.
Because what if he made Keonho uncomfortable?
What if he became disappointed?
What if he realised that Seonghyeon is absolutely an extra thing in his life?
Then Seonghyeon would be left on the street, alone with the same baggage he should have picked up Keonho at the airport.
It was really important to be a good boyfriend.
But for now, Seonghyeon was going to sleep.