[M] Seemed to lose its meanin (1/1)

«Chapter Six» "Sandara," I averted my gaze to Jiyong as he helped me stand. I was melting in embarrassment, that without thinking I wrapped my arms on his waist and buried my face on the crook of his neck. I can smell his scent, his Jiyong scent blending with his perfume and the fabric conditioner of his clothes. I can feel his hand stroking my back up and down as if telling me that it was okay. But it was not okay, for me, it was not okay. "She must be your new patient," the coldness in President Choi's voice was enough to make me risk a glance at him. He stood in front of us in his lab coat, name plate that declares his name and his position. His hair black and thin and the lines in his face show his age. His eyes were cold and deadpan. Jiyong doesn't look even a bit of him. His aura was brimming with pride and authority. I couldn't stand his presence, he drown me in intimidation that I wish to just disappear from where I am standing. "She's my girlfriend." Jiyong almost hiss the words. My heart pounded wrongly against my chest. I looked at him, pressing myself more to him, silently pleading for him to take me away from his father's suffocating presence and for him not to hear the embarrassing celebration of my heart. "You know our hospital code, Jiyong." the old man said with an exhausted sigh. "Fire me." Jiyong deadpan. "Ji..." I looked at him, the corner of his lips twitched in a suppressed smile, his arms wrapped around my waist pulling me to him, tighter and I couldn't argue with him anymore. It's crazy that in that small gesture, with the warm feeling of his body, I trust him the whole situation, handing it down to him. President Choi heaved a sigh before clicking his tongue, like he was impatient of something unknown. "I warned you," I felt his heavy hand landing on Jiyong's shoulder and I felt the coldness he felt towards him. "I am reminding you, the three day seminar." Jiyong nodded to him, keeping his eyes straight to his old man. "Think about it, son." He failed getting any reaction from him as the older doctor pressed his lips on a thin line before nodding and excusing himself away. Both I and Jiyong bowed down to him, in respect, despite of the rejection in our chest. My eyes locked on Jiyong while he stared at the back of his father walking away. I kept thinking, thinking if I should say the words that hanged in the tip of my tongue or not. I wanted to be—even for just few seconds—be like him, say things because I can. He held my hand making me look at him only to realize that our distance was so close that I was welcomed by his breath. Averting my gaze away, I stood stiff in his presence. I should have felt these things when I was just starting my twenties. Now that I am thirty it felt so awkward, so inappropriate. I know that love was for all ages but the thing was I don't believe in love—I don't want to believe in love. I felt like I was having all these delayed things and emotions crashing to my way because I am dying. It was like: You are dying, so here are all the emotions and things a human should feel in his or her life span but since you are dying, you need to feel it all at once. It was shit. Shitty shit. It was shit. Shit. He pulled me to his office and I am back to his wonderland. It was as crazy like the last time I entered it, the only difference was instead of tower of cards there was thousands of small—really, really small—jigsaw puzzle on the floor. I looked at him. "Brain challenge," he took his seat on his tall red leather office chair. His smile got to be one of the seven wonders of the world. "How are you going to finish this?" I tried focus back to the puzzle pieces that were placed in a huge clear container, some lying on the floor. "Patience, everything needs patience even when time seems to move so fast." I looked at him, he was proffering his hand to me. Pursing my lips, it was getting harder to refuse him. She's my girlfriend. I blushed tremendously remembering his words. Oh my god, Park Sandara, you are thirty. Please. He guided me to sit on his lap still looking at me with a wondering expression. "Whatever you are thinking, it is making you more beautiful." You. I am thinking of you. I bit my lips and just shyly leaned my head to rest on his shoulder. My dad used to make me sit on his lap every time we were both tired. Tired listening to my mom's endless screams and not being able to do a single thing. I closed my eyes, realizing that in his warmth, in his arms, I found home. "Are you tired? Do you want to re—""Shhh" I placed my index finger against his soft lips. "Read me a poem please," I can feel his palm caressing my arm. I felt exhausted that I couldn't open my eyes anymore like I have actually did something of worth, when all I have done was walk around and pretend that I still have more time to waste. "'Let us go then, you and I / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table.'" his voice was hushed like he was saying a secret that only the two of us were allowed to indulge. His words tumbled out of his lips with such gentleness, it was so slow that my tears fell because I wanted to live longer, long enough to hear the beginning and end of every poem he will read. "'Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, / The muttering retreats / Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels / And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: / Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent / To lead you to an overwhelming question... / Oh, do nor ask, "What is it?" / Let us go and make our visit.'" One last step, one heartbeat, one breath and I will fall the cliff. I stared at the ocean beneath, blue and calm. It spans meeting the horizon. It was huge, too huge to fit in my arms. I will want to hug it but it will spill out of my hold and swallow me whole instead. The wind blow, whispering something in my ears and I felt like I was pulled into. One step, two steps. I'll fall, don't fall. I looked at him. "Can you kiss me?" I could taste my salty tears passing through my lips. He, without a word, cupped my face in his warm hands. And as I closed my eyes, his lips met mine. My chest was bursting with overwhelming sensation and emotions all for him. It was too much that I actually want to pull my heart out and give it to him until he understands that I love him so much. "'We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown,'" He gave me quick pecks and I did my best to savor each quick seconds of those sweet little kisses. Slowly, I opened my eyes as his hand wiped my tears away. "'Till human voices wakes us, and we drown.'" I wondered if he knew, I wondered if he could feel it. Can he? My heart was shouting it, the air around us whispers it. Shhh. Let it be a secret between us. Let it be an agreement only to us. "Let's go somewhere," he was fixing my hair, gently tucking the stray strands away. I looked at him, then to myself who was still clad in this thin hospital gown. Jiyong made me stand as he walked to his cabinet containing his clothes, hanged neatly in order having few dresses in different style yet all white. Taking his white coat off, he hanged it inside then grabbed one dress from the rack. "Why do you have dresses?" I don't want to ask him that but it slipped off. "These are yours, I just bought it." He laid the dress on top of his table, the price tag hanging from it. He doesn't have to explain, I hate that he did just because probably he felt obliged. He pulled me by the waist, untying my hospital gown until it fell to the floor, pooling on my feet. I stood only on my black panties in front of him as he slid the dress on me. It wasn't of great fit but still my size. "I lost weight." He pulled my hair out of the dress. "We need to work on your diet." He bent down back to the cabinet grabbing this time black flat shoes. "I can do this." I said softly before he even lift my foot and slip the shoe on. I can still move besides I hate people doing things for me like I am an ever useless person who can't do anything for herself. He then slipped a thick brown baby doll winter coat on me. "Dr. Kwon," Chaerin opened the door of his office just in time when I finished folding the hospital gown. Jiyong stared at his assistant, waiting for whatever she was going to say. "Do you want me to cancel all your appointments?" she said glancing back and forth to me and Jiyong. "Yes, please." Jiyong nodded making her nod as well. "Anyways, I have already fixed everything for tomorrow's seminar." She was still looking at the two of us like it was actually a mystery to solve when it was too obvious. "Okay, good luck and take care then, Dr. Kwon." Bowing down, she left the room, leaving us inside the awkward silence of the mystery she created. The heavy air of a question I don't want to ask nor think about. "What are we?" regretting the words as soon as they slip off my mouth. Jiyong showed his crooked smile. "Oh, we? There's nothing like us, Sandara." I am ambitious enough to wish that I could hug the ocean, all of it, in my arms and call it mine. xxx Most of the time I don't get how his mind works. He was odd. He was fascinatingly weird and he was unfairly beautiful. His hand spread in front of his left eye, protecting himself from the blinding rays of sun. We were inside his Bentley, off to who knows where. It turned out he doesn't just own a car but he owned a Bentley—a fucking luxury car. The government was probably raking millions out of the pocket of this doctor alone. "Warm me / Like the sunlight, / Soothe me / Like the rain / Take away / All this pain," I wondered, can he feel it between the thin air that separates our skin? Can he feel it in this small space of his car? He was the ocean, vast, vivid and deep, he stretched and covered the world and almost claiming it to himself. He was the ocean as you can see its glory, its beauty and how it owned more than half of the world, like the oceans which seemed open to everyone, he was too, but the truth was he was hiding so much more beneath—beauty and scars, fault and even mountains. I stared at how focused he was to the road ahead us, his fingers tapped against his steering wheel matching the beat of his choice of music, classic and jazz. The lines of his face, the contour and its wholeness couldn't deny his beauty. "Who are you Kwon Jiyong?" I didn't even hear myself let go of those words until he turned and looked at me. We stayed staring like that for a moment, until the traffic light turned green and the beeps thundered around us. Until the world faded and left us in a space only for us. He smiled before turning away, pushing down the hand break and driving away. "I am a combination / Of too many wrongs / And far too few rights." xxx He parked his car to a place unknown to me yet familiar as I recognized it, like I have seen it somewhere. Opening the door of his car, he stepped out and crossed over his car to open mine. The cold winter breeze welcomed me as I stood staring on an isolated playground almost covered in snow. Days ago it was summer, the sun shone against my skin, the air was warm. Fascinating, undeniably amazing the magic that places hold, that distance has. He held my hand inside his and we walked towards the swing. I stared at it, the rusted chains connecting both seat to the rusted metal frame of it, the wooden seat, covered in snow. Perhaps it would be too cold to sit on it. Jiyong removed the snow on both seat and we sat. It wasn't cold as I thought it was or maybe it was because of our thick winter coat. In movies and books, childhood had always been about this. About big smiles, melodic laughter, happiness, swings to ride, friends to hold hands, green meadows to lie, rain to dance and stars to wish. But book lies, movie lies. They were all bunch of lies. My childhood was spent on every corner of our house, on the car or plane to Busan, in Hyunsuk's restaurant. My childhood had always been about my parents secret fights, that I know, my mom's screaming, my mom's pain, my mom's sickness, my mom's suffering. My wishes were not for castles, unicorns, rainbows and a prince charming, it were all about mom. Please make my mom’s headache stop. Please make her better. Please let her live longer. Please make her happy. Please, I don't want to cause her sufferings anymore. Until I woke up one day and I am too old for everything. Too old for swings, too old for fairytales, too old for wishing to the stars. I used my feet and pushed myself to move the swing. The cold winter breeze gushing to me as I swung, higher and higher. I giggled. I never thought this was so fun. Jiyong watched me as I pushed myself higher and higher. I don't want to stop, I don't want my feet to land on the ground anymore. The gray clouds looked closer to me, it was as if I was a child again. Healthy and curly haired, chubby and spilling out her pink winter jacket. Closing my eyes, I am a child once more, young and almost immortal. The swing slowed down and the moment my feet touched the ground I am warped back to myself, the older and dying me. As the swing stopped, I looked at him, he was still looking at me. "This is my first time riding it," I grinned at him. "Been here for million times." He was Kwon Jiyong, 22 years old, a medicine magna cum laude graduate in Seoul University, son of President Choi, reads and write poems beautifully and had been riding swings for million times. "With your friends?" it was the common follow up question. He smiled, "No, just me." "That's boring." It wasn't, really. Being alone had always appealed to me, there was no need to make a conversation, try to act you were okay with absolutely anything or everything people want and think. You don't have to fake it, you can be yourself, you can see the world on how you wanted to see it. In being alone, the best kind of freedom can be felt. "I am a boring individual, Sandara." I shook my head in disagreement because, he really wasn't. He was so cool, amazing that I often wonder why he stick to me, the real boring. "You like playing alone?" it was a stupid question. I had been a child, I know that no child wants to play alone. Children seek companion, someone who will agree to them, like the same thing they like and ride the seesaw with them. "No one likes to play with me," his weirdness should have been the straight give away of his isolation. He was too smart for everyone, he was too big to hold in their hands, like the oceans. "No one wants to play with the son of the devil." This time he was the one who pushed himself to swing, he was higher and I watched him rack back and forth, his skin kissed by the winter breeze. I watched him and imagined him as a child. Skinny with big glasses, hair still black, clothes still weird. Until he slowed down and his feet touched the ground and he was back to the 22 year old him. We stared at each other and I realized we have so much in common. We stepped on the same ground, breathe the same air, under the same sky, both scarred and bruised, both trying not to live in the illusion that life brings. I reached for his hand, my fingers seek to fill the spaces between his. I could feel his warmth in my red cold and a bit swollen hands. He moved his head closer to mine and I did the same, until our lips found and completed each other as we sat on the cold swings of our stolen childhood. xxx "Why did you bring me here?" I was trying to balance on the metal railing in the playground while he was holding my hand to help me walk and balance. "Doesn't this place look familiar?" it was. I jumped at the end of the tube and landed on the snow. "It is." I glanced at him as we walked our way to the monkey bars. "Can you guess why?" I shook my head and faced him. "Don't you watch your Drama?" I blinked at him before roaming my eyes all over the place. Oh, that's why it was familiar. This was the place where they shot Missing You but that was not my main concern. "You watch it?" I was hell sure I am beet red. He nodded. "I am waiting for the latest episode." Why do I feel so embarrassed? I can stand naked in front of him not feeling anything but the want for his skin to press on mine yet this, just knowing he was watching that dreadful drama of mine made me want the ground to open and swallow me whole. I turned around, acting so middle school. I felt him hugged me from behind, his arms over me. "I am like her," my heart which pounded ever so loud stopped for a moment to absorb his words. "Hated, feared, alone." I felt his lips on my neck as he buried his face on me like he could find home in my paling skin, my bony structure. "Oh, Jiyong... I'm sorry," I thought I won't be able to say anything, to regain myself and feel my heartbeat again. It hurts, in that moment, in that far, that one winter, I shared his pain, the burden he has been carrying. I kept it all in my heart, the Jiyong that was not the amazing, weird, genius con looking doctor. I kept in my heart his broken pieces, the fragility that never showed, the side of him that needed me most. "I am too," his voice was so low, softer than his breath. "I wish I have you to hug on those days,""I wish too... I wish we had each other even back then.""Back when everyone will try to understand but no one will." I held his arms tight to me. Tilting my head, I watched as the gray clouds parted for the clear sky. There was still almost countless days before the cold days fade but I felt warmed enough, like I held the sun in my bare hands, keeping it to myself. "Yeah, back to the time where we had no one." xxx The sun had finally set, the sky in the mix of the night concoction. I don't actually know how long we were sitting in that rusted swings, swinging, talking, him reciting his poems, he seemed to never run out of it. Then, just existing in the silence until the me and the him vanished to oblivion and only there was only the us. I looked at the sky, holding both chains of the swing. This could have been the world's most boring date but this was the only way we knew to know each other, to uncover the hidden. "I will be in Japan for a seminar for three days," I looked at him, lips pursing. Three days could be short or could the longest days ever. Not knowing exactly what to say or what he wanted me to say, I gave a nod. 'I will miss you," I was silent for seconds. "You won't," finally deciding to wave it off, portraying like it was nothing. "The thing is, no matter how far or close, I just missed you way too much." I wanted to be happy but that moment, I just wished him to wake up free of Park Sandara. Almost, impossible but a shooting star passed, it was there one moment then poof, gone. Nonetheless, I closed my eyes to make a wish. This time one wish for myself, not for my mom or for my dad, but for me. "What are you wishing for?" I could hear his curiosity in his every word. Opening my eyes, I turned to look at him and reached for his hand. "Can you keep a secret?" my voice was hushed, afraid that the wind might take away my words and carry it for everyone to hear. He entwined his fingers with mine. He nodded. "I am a keeper," I believed him, he had always been my keeper since he knocked in my apartment to check if cancer was living. I moved closer to him, until my lips hovered few centimeters away from his ear. "I wished for... a triple chocolate special sundae." I ended it with a giggle which I stopped by biting my lips. Jiyong chuckled shaking his head. He stood up, pulling me from my seat. "Let's get what you wished for," I jumped and hugged him. "Your treat?" He rubbed his nose against mine. "Of course." I kept my wish inside me. Where no one could hear it. Where it was only me and the heavens and the shooting star could share. Please give me enough time to swim to the bottom of this ocean, enough time to discover and try to heal his scars. Enough time to make him understand that he was loved, cherished and needed. Perhaps my wish wasn't so much about me. But it was all me, the very me who was hopelessly pulled to him. One step, two steps. I admire the beauty of the liquid sapphire below. I'll fall, don't fall. xxx Three blocks from the sundae parlor, we walked towards this motel. Embarrassing and crazy as it seemed but it was me who asked him to go there with me. He didn't say anything and just walked with me hand in hand in the motel with the theme of 80's. It had this really huge bright yellow orange sign, the lobby looked like an entrance to a disco pub. Was it crazy that I am having an intimate relationship to someone 8 years younger than me? Jiyong asked for their most expensive room and the moment he did, they treated as like we were VIPs. We reached the room and using the card key, Jiyong opened the wooden door that was designed by huge black cds. My eyes blinked in disbelief at the view of the room, it was full of mirrors, like a room of mirrors, even the ceiling has mirror. Then there was this huge bed in the middle covered in velvet purple. "Whoa," I have heard that motels do offer rooms that has tons of mirrors but I have never thought of entering one. I pushed the door closed and gawked at the room's fascinating feature. "What's with the mirrors?" I blurted out rather idiotically. "For fun, I guess?" I just looked at him then few seconds of silence, I burned into shyness, making me fumbled with my fingers. I looked on my feet, feeling his stares on me. I bit my lips hard. What the hell am I thinking? Jiyong sat on the edge of the bed. "Let's sleep," he offered. I looked at him, then all over the room. If I take my clothes off, I am sure I will see every skinny facet of my body. The thought made me burned red as the thought of him and me naked. "Can you..." I looked at him and he just looked back, waiting. "Can you, uhh, let me do this?" I bit my lips hard. He smiled, not a sexy smirk or anything, rather a timid smile, his answer to my question. "Whatever you want." I nodded, taking off my brown winter coat and placing it on the small velvet purple sofa. Kicking my shoes off, I walked to him. Bending down, I took his shoes off his feet, one at a time and removed his green socks which doesn't even match his silvery skinny jeans. I chuckled seeing its cute eyes prints. I looked at him, through my lashes. I pulled my confidence, trying to keep myself intact and in one breathing piece. Pushing him gently, he moved, climbing the bed. I closed my eyes, my forefingers feeling his skin, the lines and curves of his face. Burning the moment in my head. My head that was pounding, the home of my cancer. Gently, I opened my eyes and looked at him, my hands leaning, sinking in the mattress as I pushed myself closer to him. My eyes darted on his lips, feeling and breathing his breath. Our lips throbbed in the anticipation at the thin air that separates them. I lift my gaze, looked at him, his eyes half closed, his pink and blue hair, falling down almost covering his orbs. I closed the distance, our lips touched got a quick suck, then I pulled away. I claimed his lips briefly then pulled away. It was a crazy pull and push, sucking and letting go. Kisses, deep yet quick. All I was really planning was to know him, ask him questions but the fear gripping my heart threatening to pull it stopped me. I kissed him deep as if his kiss, these soft lips will tell me of him, of his secrets, his mother, his father. I am desperate to know him. I know, I could ask but I am afraid that he wouldn't answer that from his lips, I will know that he doesn't trust me as much as I trust him. Pulling away, I gave myself a second to breathe, my hands gripping the collar of his black and red checkered long sleeved polo. My hands, trembling, reaches for his buttons. Just like how the two of us started. Jiyong held my hand only to help me unbutton his polo. I pushed it off his shoulder. His bare torso, already familiar to my eyes and hands, was exposed to my sight. "Aren't you disgusted? I'm too old for you, I am a cancertastic cougar," I chuckled but he didn't answer, instead his palm pulled me by my nape, his parted lips took mine. "Cougar? Don't be ridiculous," he kissed the corner of my lips. His hand unzipped my dress as it gracefully slid off my body. I stared at the mirror. My bony body on my plain comfortable black undies and him half naked, jeans unbuttoned beneath me. It looked beautiful, it felt sexy, like a commercial for some jeans brand. "I think you liked it as much as I do." he switched our position lying me on my back, him hovering over me. I stared at our reflection on the mirror mounted at the room's ceiling. I ran my palm on his back and smiled in satisfaction. "'Part the sheets, / Divide the waters / I will worship your skin / Kiss ever inch,'" I locked my eyes on his sexy one. His fingers cling on the hem of my panties, pulling it slowly off me, his other hand clamping off my bra. His lips kissed me slow and almost as if savoring me from my lips to my jaw down to my neck. "'I'll create our story / Weave our fates / The night, our witness / A moment of such greatness,'" I was naked beneath him, breathing heavy and uneven. He moved and lied next to me, arms snaking around mine, fingers intertwined with mine. He kicked his jeans off, all his clothing until he was naked, shameless, lying next to me. Our skin touching, our reflection staring back at us. "'Part your skin / I shall own your heart / Count its beating / Find its meaning," nothing could be more beautiful than his words in his gentle voice. I turned my head and looked at him. Him and me lying, no layers in between, nothing to hide. He looked at me, his fingers removing the stray strands of my hair away from my face. "'Seconds will be forever / Dance till the break of dawn," he lifted my hand, that his fingers filled the spaces between my shaking fingers. "Till the world wake us / Till tomorrow stop coming / Till we fade into one," his lips kissed my hand long as his eyes shut close. xxx Before the sun rose, he took the plane off to Japan.  ---«author's blah»★welcome to the all too dramatic, quite, just a bit, pain in the chest world of somewhere in the night! ssup lovelies? gah imagine! i updated this, 21 guns and double updated for ooak. lol. i am generous at times lol. i might have eaten something lol. anyways, thank you gd_ume for making this update possible. for bearing with the typos and bad grammar. haha.★poems credits: tyler knott gregson «tylerknott.com» ; prufrock «c/o of fault in our stars by john green» ; seveninfinity★okay, this story should have lesser rated scenes but i can't help it, i find jiyong reciting poem while doing something erotic uber sexy. fuq. otl. i will try to tone it down though. wish me luck.★more dramas and poems on next chapter ^^★word count: 5,200 #오늘밤새∞limitless (*¯︶¯*)