It took months to get here, even though it was clear now that all the other options were never going to work from the start. Like a drowning man, he had to cling to all the buoys before admitting that there was nothing left to do but sink into the abyss.
And make no mistake about it. It was a deep chasm to fall into, but there was no better place to fall so far. Some people said love was like jumping off a cliff or drowning in the ocean. He disagreed. To him, love was learning to breathe underwater.
So here it is. Sitting outside again on a clear, starry night with Seong Mi. His eyes locked up at the stars as he took a deep breath and prepared himself to say what he hadn’t ever intended but somehow had already said many times in the last few months. Seong Mi, for her part, was mostly silent. That itself a testament to how the two were finally coming back into alignment. Mostly silent because she couldn’t help a final, “Are you sure?”
He chuckled, glancing down at her and offering a nod and a smile to show how alright he finally was. “I’m sure. The melancholy, the discordance…I think it’s been because I was fighting myself. And not just you, this time. We tried, Seong. We tried so hard that I think it was hurting more that way.” He leaned over and knocked shoulders with her lightly. “You can feel it too, right? We’re closer now than we’ve ever been and I think that’s why. We want the same thing. Maybe not the same ways, but your goals and mine are one. I appreciate how hard you’ve tried lately to hold us up, but there is no letting go. Not yet. Maybe never.”
She winced, looking away. “Never is a long time. That could be how long we have to wait.”
She snapped her head around at the chuckle he gave in response as well as the muttered, “Probably so.”
“Have you gone mad.” She demanded.
“Yes.” His chuckle had broken down into a slightly mad laugh at this point. It was crazy enough that her lips twitched as she resisted the urge to smile. Hell, if it made him that happy.
“You too.” He murmured. “I’m not doing this alone. You agree with me and you know it.”
“I do, but I don’t know if I can say it.” She sighed and flopped back onto the cold grass to get a better view of the stars.
“Technically, you said it first.” He smirked. ‘Remember? If you can’t be mine, then I’m yours.’
“I was being rediculous.” She whined.
“You were being honest. You don’t like not being connected to him.”
“It can’t be any more serious than that. It’s the pressure that he doesn’t like.” She muttered and rolled away.
“Pretty sure that he’s complained about us deciding how he feels about things before.” He countered, for once completely unswayed by her petulance.
“THIS is not the argument with which to use his logic.” She snapped.
“Fine. Then as a counter-argument, our decision and feelings are not debatable nor do they require validation, confirmation or a fucking receipt. Love isn’t a fucking transaction.”
She sat up abruptly and smacked him on the chest. “You fucking cad. You used that word.”
He grabbed his chest and sat up, glaring at her for once again, not understanding. “Oh piss off, seriously? Do you think that using it somehow invalidates what we want to say? I could go into a long diatribe about love and all its forms, but that’s really just pussyfooting around. Isn’t it? Put a fucking box around everything physical and toss it away. Sex…sex is not love. Sex has no fucking room to even stand where we are.”
“Bullshit. You still want him.”
“We do because, fuck you, we aren’t dead. But this whole conversation isn’t about sex.” He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “We’re not dead, Seong. There’s no one that I want more. Frankly, I’d be fine telling the whole world to fuck off. But that’s not really what this is about. This is about a simple observation. One that has taken months of deliberation because it’s not smart. It’s likely the worst decision that we can make together, but we’ve tried everything else and rather than feeling free, the alternatives have made us fucking unhappy. And why? Why was it so important that we distance ourselves and create lines where there doesn’t have to be any.”
“Lines are important because they protect him.” She reasoned.
“No, lines were drawn to protect us. We know where the lines are and we never forget. But that has nothing to do with forcing ourselves to find replacements or create distance just to prove we can. What you said? It got stuck and I’ve been thinking about it. And you know, since I started thinking about it- I’ve gotten fucking happier.” He huffed a soft melodic laugh. “He can be mad if he wants. The fact is that on some level, we can and will provide what he needs. He’ll continue looking for his perfect love and we’ll support him every day in any way that we can because we love the fuck out of him. Unconditionally. If he wants to be petty and angry because he’s having a danger night, we’ll handle the flames because it’s worth it. If he wants to ignore us until he feels like we’ve lost interest, it’ll be a really long, lonely time but we have goals and we’re persistent as fuck. We’ll still be there.”
“And if he finds his perfect love?” She murmurs, shifting over to lay her head on his lap. “What is your grandmaster plan then?”
He hums at that, his hand raising to trace a strand of hair from her face. “So we’ll love him more. I can’t really see how anyone can have too much love.”
“Won’t it hurt?”
“No more than it has trying to ignore it for the last few months. Personally, I may still want to make him kneel…but we’re fucking switches. We’re his whether he wants us or not. I don’t see any use ignoring it anymore.”
After a moment of silence, she sighs and plays the mediator between them and their unspoken audience. “So what exactly does this change? What do we want by saying this?”
“Nothing at all. Maybe I just want to share it the right way. Since last time I was too upset to get it right. I was pining and pouting like a fucking child and I didn’t understand what I had versus what I didn’t. I have…the best friend I could ever ask for. I have someone that I care for more than anyone else on this earth right now…and he doesn’t have to do a damn thing differently than he has for months. Just accept a fucking warm and fuzzy compliment.”
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