💌　જ⁀➴ ❤︎ Mini Valentine's Day Event!

[ an hour later. the crumbled page is replaced with another high quality piece of bristol paper, a staple at the top left with a second page attached, crumbled and filled with a simple drawing of stick figures at the beach, crayons smeared to add color (https://64.media.tumblr.com/911824f13c32e0e4d9e5486a59fe12b1/cf4812eeaa3c43ab-3b/s2048x3072/cf0c5901e5e348d04a442aba812f4b87a49835d3.jpg) ]

i have read your letter so many times i could rewrite it from memory. every word, every breath between them, every place where i know your hands hesitated. and yet, i could have told you long before this—i recognized you the moment i met you.

as if there was ever a world where i wouldn’t.

you speak of atoms, of stars, of fates entwined before we ever took our first breaths. and you are right. but let me tell you this—sei casa mia. you are not just written in the sky; you are in my hands, in my skin, in the air i breathe. my want for you is not some distant thing, bound to myths and legends. it is here, adesso. now. always.

come home.

i will cook for you—pasta alla sorrentina, the way my mother made it, with mozzarella that stretches when you take your first bite. i will open a bottle of wine, one of the good ones i have been saving. and then i will sit across from you, watch the way your lips curl around your glass, the way your eyes linger on me like you have something to say but no rush to say it. we have time now.

i want to spend the days with you, a camminare sulla spiaggia—walking on the shore, watching the tide roll in, feeling the salt stick to our skin. i want quiet mornings, your voice the first thing i hear, il primo raggio di sole che mi tocca.

call me. ora. now. before i lose my mind missing you.

ps. forgive my drawing, my hands are better suited for cooking. i’ll make it up to you with dinner. even our kids one day will be better than me.

[ less than a day later, the high quality paper is replaced once more - another torn page, more crumpled that the one before, as if torn out in a hurry. the shadow of a drawing is more obvious now - seeing as the source of it is on the back of the page itself. ( https://i.imgur.com/xEvdGhS.png ) there are much viewer words on the page this time, the note shorter, the cramped writing messier, as if the message, too, was as rushed as the tearing of the page. ]

as if i there was a possibility i could not recognize you.

as if there was a universe where my atoms were not constantly vibrating to re-connect with yours. as if we were not made of dust from the same star.

"i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; i would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. i would know him in death, at the end of the world."

when i first read those words, i did not think a feeling like this was real outside the pages of books. feelings like this could not exist if they did not within stories and between the dusty shelves of libraries. thoughts like these were saved for writers and the heroes of old, not ordinary men.

a part of me fears that i misunderstood. that i recognized you, as i knew i always would, but that you'd think it was someone else. that you wish it was someone else. another name on your tongue. another face on your mind. but, you see, when i came here, it was with the promise to let myself hope.

thinking of you, i think that is what i am doing right now.

thinking of you, i think i can understand why achilles was unable to leave behind patroclus for days after he fell.

[ high quality bristol paper replaces the wrinkled and torn page from a sketchbook, that page instead now resting in his pocket. the writing is neat, random letters connecting in a unique hand-written letter by a quill pen ]

three days late.

but what is time to longing?

have you ever looked at someone and felt like your hands should have already known the shape of them? like the air between you was never meant to be empty?

i think of the space between fingertips in The Creation of Adam—that unbearable, aching almost. so close, yet not close enough. i think of the way mr. darcy reaches for elizabeth and stops himself, the way their hands brush in passing and how that single touch lingers longer than any embrace could. i think of the spaces where love exists not in fulfillment, but in the absence of it, in the wanting, the waiting.

longing has always been a quiet thing for me. a shadow that stretches with the passing of time but never fully disappears. i have never known how to reach out, how to press my palms against the invisible barrier and break it, how to turn a look into a touch, a thought into a truth.

and you—

you have made that silence deafening.

the first time i saw you, there was no revelation. no thunderclap of certainty. just a glance, just a moment, just a shift in the air that i didn't understand until it was too late. like recognizing a song only after the last note has faded.

but now, now it is impossible not to know.

now i find myself tracing the edges of something unspoken, caught between the fear of shattering it and the unbearable need to do just that.

now i find myself wondering—if i reached for you, would you meet me halfway?

or would we remain like that painting, that moment, that breath between touch and eternity—

fingers stretched across the distance, never quite closing the gap?

three days late, and yet—

if i left a book open on your desk, pages marked with a passage that reminds me of you, would you know it was me?

if i brought you a cup of tea just the way you like it, would you notice how my hands hesitate, just for a second, before letting go?

as i write this and leave it unsigned, do you recognize my handwriting?

or would you only know me by the longing i cannot hide?

@kim doyeon ˢʰ dear doyeon,

happy valentine's day to one of the most beautiful women in the whole wide world!

i can't believe we've known each other for so long and i'm more than happy that we get closer with each year that passes. i don't know what kind of man i would be without you in my life. i must be the luckiest man on earth to have you in my life, doyeon. i hope you had a wonderful valentine's day this year and if you meet that special someone, make sure to introduce them to me, okay? i can't wait for you to find the person who'll make you happy every single day.

love,

your good friend hyunbin ♡

( put up on the board on a page torn out of a sketchbook ; wrinkled and torn off unevenly, the ghost of a drawing pressed into the paper through the previous page faintly visible, the writing neat but cramped. )

a day late.

but these thoughts have been plaguing me.

have you ever seen someone that wanted you to commit the most beautiful blasphemies?

to the gods of old, love itself could be sin sometimes. do not love deeply enough, look another way, and the goddess would strike you where you stand or direct your affection towards a deathly suitor. love too strongly and a jealous god would take your beloved from your hands, crush them to dust and paint the sky with the constellations that made up their being. a love too passionate could send the both of you into the very depths of tartarus, into one of the circles of hell.

the words dante allowed to francesca to speak blamed their love on sin and their sin on love. as paolo weeps in the background of their tale, she speaks of a love that seized both her and her lover, as something inevitable. there is not a single moment where she seems to doubt the passion that lead the both of them to live their non-life within the second circle of hell, forever thrown around by winds as violent as their affections. rather, it always seems like if someone were to ask her, she would do so again. i am sure that paolo, through his tears, would not disagree.

whenever i talk about literature, my words feel clinical to me. you can take the man out of research, but can't take the research out of the man.

as i write this, it is nearing midnight. the moon has been full only a small handful of nights ago. my tea is spiked and has long since went cold. the playlist i have on is the closest thing to a collection of love songs i have ever gathered. i am sure that at least one of these facts has an influence on me.

when i first saw you, there was no grand moment. if i were to enjoy traditional love stories more, i would have been disappointed - at the lack of fireworks, at the simplicity of the moment. it did not even feel significant, not really. it was like any other day.

or rather, like any other night. because, seeing you for the first time was like looking at the moon. she's shining there every night and on some days, a constant companion, even when unseen. i do not look at the moon because it is a novelty, but because looking at her is inevitable. she is not beautiful because she is new, but because she is a constant. even with her changes, even with her phases and travels, there is the quiet knowledge that she exists. seeing you was like that, too - is like that.

inevitable.

or, no, not just looking at you. you, in general. longing for you. falling for you. writing that alone feels like confessing something i should not be allowed to acknowledge.

i don't know what i am saying.

did you know i am usually known for my pretty words? i have been praised for them many a time. my old professor told me that my reports read like prose sometimes. nevermind my own feeling that they are clinical, as i said. around you, though, i seem to forget the entire ing language. no dictionary could help me find the words i am looking for so, instead, i ramble. i thought it would be easier when you are not around, but it seems like the mere thought of you is enough to make my mind blank.

i don't know. maybe it is just that. maybe it really is just that one word.

inevitable.

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