prologue; rain

we begin with the rain, the spring, and the flowers that grow in that time. love blossoms and grows, is new and fresh and knows as little as there is to know about love. but you supposed that’s what made it exciting. you were finally dipping your toe in new waters, and you’re finding yourself surprised.

word count: 1.2k

member: Jaehyun 

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It was raining, and raining hard; the kind of rain where, if life were an animated film, people would be ducking under shop covers with newspapers as umbrellas. There was something about quiet rainy nights. They seemed to be a cornerstone of your life, reliable and consistent and never faltering to make you feel completely insignificant. Car tires rolled you forward slowly, reluctance in the air as the hand cupping yours hardened its grip. You felt reality sliding back into your veins, pulsed into you with the constant strumming of his thumb against the back of your hand. He refused to drive anywhere without holding you near, his favourite mode of operation being tricky left turns to impress you along your simple city drives. Yet, it was a straight road home, lines separating lanes feeling like imaginary barriers you could slip in and out of. The barrenness of your street had you paying attention to the song quietly dripping from the speakers and the orange lamplights.

That was the funny thing about rain. It highlighted things you wouldn’t otherwise pay attention to. Lamplights only seemed to be orange when it was pouring out, but would resume their usual canary the second it stopped. Your favourite thing was looking at the way the wind blew the droplets every which way under the light. It was like you were watching a furious dance or perhaps a race, with no clear winner but definite plot twists. You felt a smile pull at the corners of your lips as you created stories in your head, watching drops hit the window like film spots in old movies.

“Hey.”

His voice came as a whisper, just above the slight pounding of the rain. Eyes torn from the road and all the thoughts in your head, you met yours with his. The brown in them was fading into the green he liked to claim he had none of in his eyes. The headlights were casting little shadows on his face, highlighting the more prominent parts of him- the sharp corners and edges of his facial structure you’d come to love to much.

“Hi,” you whispered back, a smile creeping onto your lips involuntarily. You caught a glimpse of his teeth beyond his stretched smile, one hand firmly on the steering wheel and attention back onto the road.

“What’s going on up here?” The point of his finger came to press against the middle of your forehead, the familiar scent of pumpkins brushing your nose as you caught a whiff of his sleeve. Your hand rose with his, and fell just the same, his grip strong when you were linked as such.

“Nothing,” you admitted, realizing your thoughts about rain and film spots and races amounted to just that, “just thinking.”

“About?”

Your smile pulled at your cheeks a bit harder, knowing he was going to keep pressing if you didn’t give him a straight answer. A breath was all you took before starting, “about how much I love you. Did you know that? That I love you?”

The passage of air between tight teeth and his lips hooking onto each end of his ears was enough for you. The answer made him giddy but he chose not to show it. He substituted a big hug for rub of your forehead with his thumb as you dipped your head to rest it on his arm while he drove.

“Dork.”

“I do kind of think about how surprising it is though,” you admitted, the idea suddenly coming to you. The pause you took made you realize it wasn’t a complete thought and you rushed to finish it off with, “like, how we’re together and stuff. Almost a year later and- and here we are, you know. Isn’t is weird?”
“Weird? No, I don’t think so.” He notched up an eyebrow at you, the look almost envious of the timing in which you brought the conversation up. You were so close to home, you would hardly have the time to really chat about it all.

Reluctantly, he made the left turn into your building’s driveway, slowly rolling through the parking lot as you picked up words to say that would be able to really encompass what you were trying to say.

“I guess we just went through a lot. There was Subin, Minseok, your whole band thing, hiding stuff from people, falling in love when we shouldn’t have; there was a lot. We were just supposed to be friends, right?”

You raised your arms up, waving around at nothing and everything. “Now look at us.”

“It was a lot, wasn’t it?” He decided on these words after rolling to a stop in his usual parking spot at the back of the lot, a big V marking the floor. He raised the back of your hand up for a kiss, holding it there to murmur words against it.

“I think it worked out for the best. Probably not the healthiest start to things, or the most advisable or repeatable, but I can’t say I regret it.”

“Can you?” he asked after a well mannered pause, definitely taking into account the fact that you hadn’t responded quickly enough.

“No,” you admitted, getting a proper look in his eyes now. He was focused, all his attention in one spot, filling you up from your heart into every crack and crevice you held.

It overwhelmed you sometimes, the amount you felt for him. Your heart knocked in your chest and you couldn’t believe one person had the power to make you feel this way. He lifted you off your feet and placed you back on the ground again but with arms and legs made of jelly and lips made of sour candy. You were a new person every time you were around him and yet, you were just as you always were as a kid: happy, whole, and completely yourself. Home meant the flecks of gold in his eyes and the freckles on his skin that he used to get made fun of for. Home was the way his lips made you see visions when they touched yours, and his hands that seemed to envelop yours even when they were the same size. A thousand feelings and thoughts and words rushed into every part of your body, little tendrils of the flame in your heart nipping at your eyes.

“Hey,” he whispered again, leaning across the console to place a kiss on your forehead. His hands let go of yours and came to either side of your face, thumb running little circles into the skin just above your jaw.

“You can’t go crying or you’ll make me start up.”

“I know,” you sniffled, holding it in as your eyes met again, “I’m sorry.”

A little giggle left his mouth as it did yours, both of you knowing each others tricks at this point. He didn’t even have to tell you to stop apologizing. He just bumped his nose against yours, clicked his tongue, and pulled you as close as you could get with the console in between.

“I don’t regret it,” you murmured quietly, ear pressed against his chest. Your eyes closed, yellow and white lights streaking across your eyelids from the passing cars just down the road.

“I don’t regret it for a second.”

His arms wrapped tighter around you. Your hand instinctively touched the pendent around your wrist, a little charm there in the shape of his name. You traced the J, feeling the pressure in your chest release with every single rub of your head.

“I don’t either. Not for a second.”