#ariana grande raindrops | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rrxnjun · 2 years ago

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liebestraum [park jisung]

if anyone asked park jisung if he believed in ghosts, he would say yes– for he saw longing grow legs and follow him.

pairing: park jisung x fem! reader genre: summer break au. coming of age, slice of life, angst, fluff warnings: mentions of parents' divorce, swearing word count: 11k (11.190) playlist: liebestraum - franz liszt / the gold - phoebe bridgers / our summer - txt / could cry just thinking about you - troye sivan / burning love - elvis presley / if not for you - maneskin / we'll never have sex - leith ross / christmas kids - roar / raindrops (an angel cried) - ariana grande / ceilings - lizzy mcalpine / the loneliest - maneskin / about you - the 1975

a/n: this is mainly for you, liebestraum anon <3 thank you so much for being the most supportive friend, i really enjoy talking with you. hope the wait was worth it and hope the fic doesn't disappoint. i think that if it wasn't for you, this fic would never see the light of day HAHA

Laying on the floor of his aunt’s living room, listening to the vinyl his aunt popped into the record player just a few minutes prior to leaving the room to get some tea for the guests that are arriving soon, Park Jisung wishes for the ground to swallow him whole and for the ceiling to fall down and bury him in the deepest depths of this house. His head starts to spin as he dives in deeper to the music, the classical tunes almost making him overthink more than he has before. He wonders what would happen if he just left the room, left his aunt’s house and ran away so far no one could ever find him.

He finds himself fantasizing about stuff like this a lot lately. Listening to classical music– because of course his aunt listens to music from the 19th century, she’s almost as old as the composers themselves– he wonders what came through the mind of the author of the song when he wrote such trivial melodies.

Laying on the floor of his aunt’s living room, listening to the vinyl his aunt popped into the player just a few minutes prior to leaving the room to get some tea for the guests that are arriving soon, Park Jisung drifts away to a soft slumber, deep enough to make him more tired, but light enough to wake him up when the doorbell rings and the obnoxious laughter of his dear aunt pierces through his ears.

His aunt wakes him up with a screech. Frankly, it hasn’t been that long since he’s fallen asleep and he truly doesn’t really know if it was his position on the floor that made her scream, or the fact that he’s embarrassing her in front of the guests by sleeping on the floor in the living room, but nonetheless, he’s quick to stand up and bow to the guests, trying hard to be respectful.

His aunt nervously chews on the inside of her cheek. Her smile is a little too forced when she introduces all of them to him, but he tries hard to ignore the fact that she looks like an utter clown, pretending her house is a beautiful, welcoming shrine, because laughing out loud at her antics would surely do him no good. See, Jisung doesn't like to anger his aunt. It’s not that he doesn't enjoy the silent treatment she gives him, finally letting him breathe in the quiet– the feeling of suffocating escaping him for once in a while– but he simply just doesn’t enjoy it when she only glares at him and doesn’t speak more words than a single sentence announcing when the dinner’s ready. It only serves to make him feel more alienated.

“Jisung, these are my friends from university,” his aunt recites, sounding rehearsed, and he bets she acted out the scene in her head a thousand times before falling asleep last night, so it’s all perfect when the actual moment happens in real life, “their names are Jinyoung and Nayeon, they met in university and got married a few years later.”

He hums, scamming the adults from head to toe, noticing the neat way they present themselves. He wonders if this is how his parents looked to strangers when they used to visit their old friends. The truth is, they never looked as neat and as in tune with each other as this couple does in his eyes– but maybe he just wasn’t able to perceive them this way due to the image he made of their marriage when they were at home.

Eyes traveling to the person behind them, the fringe falling to their forehead, he gets captivated by a mysterious look in their orbs, hands hidden in the pockets of their jacket. Jisung’s not too sure if his aunt caught him staring at the unintroduced guest�� now, he will admit that he stared at the person, for they were a stranger to him and for no other reason– but he know for sure that they did, from how they squint their eyes at Jisung and offer him a teasing smile.

“Oh, and this is Y/N,” his aunt says, nudging the person closer to his nephew, as if to present a thing meant to solve all of his problems, “their child. They are staying for the summer, so I expect you two to hang out often, since you’re the same age and all!”

Looking at his aunt, a dead look mirroring his eyes, he hears the person– you– with a voice sweet but a little prickly, just like the smell of a Christmas tree his family used to have in their living room during December, ask a question that is easily able to beat him down to the ground in one second, despite not really knowing you long enough to be this affected by a single strand of words plastered together.

“Does this mean we have to be friends?” you say, eyeing his aunt. Jisung doesn't know if you two have met before, because he himself hasn’t been around his aunt this often, but the familiarity in your eyes tells him that this shouldn’t be your first time being around his aunt. He has no way of proving it, and since he doesn't care enough to ask, he may never actually know.

“That’s- that’s not what I was hinting at, but I’m sure you two would make good friends!” his aunt chirps, making him suddenly wonder if her friends even agreed on letting their child spend time with a boy they just saw for the first time, sleeping on the floor of his aunt’s living room. He doesn’t think his aunt actually cares about their opinion, though. He thinks she just desperately wants him out of the house sometimes. Truth be told, he doesn’t blame her. It wasn’t her fault that he had to suddenly waddle into her house, eat her food and sleep in the spare bedroom for the summer– if he was in his aunt’s shoes, he’d want his comfort back as well. She didn’t ask for this. And he doesn’t even know why she agreed in the first place. “You are quite similar and have a lot in common, is what I meant,” his aunt finishes, and Jisung cringes under her gaze, because in reality, how could she even know?

A sigh escapes your lips, eyes rolling as you look over at your parents and snicker. “Am I at least getting paid for hanging out with this loser?”

“Y/N, watch your mouth!” your mother snaps, an apologetic look in her eyes.

Truth is, though, the comment doesn’t affect him. At least not in the way it should– it doesn’t offend him, it doesn’t hurt. Instead, he grins, looking you dead in the eyes, already liking the foreign excitement in his bones that dares to make his life feel much more lively than it has while he was locked up in the spare bedroom of his aunt’s house.

“I’m Park Jisung.”

Your lips widen into a cheshire grin, Jisung’s surroundings suddenly disappearing into thin air, the adults in their own universe now, not heard of and not seen. Staring you into your eyes for a heartbeat, another few words escape his mouth as a premise, unknowingly setting the tone for the two of you already.

“Let’s hang out. Show me around. If I have fun, you get a tenner. If it sucks, you’re not getting paid for being friends with me. Deal?”

He doesn’t know if it was the money on the line, or if you saw something in him that interested you enough to keep on giving in. And after all this time, he doesn't think he’ll get an answer– it’s too far out of his reach, too far back in history. But somehow, in that moment, you took his hand and shook it, starting off something that made Park Jisung who he is today. The contact of your hand with his felt like electricity to the boy, the sudden courage disappearing right as he feels the softness of your palm, and when your eyes lock, he physically feels his knees buckle under him– that’s the effect you have on the boy.

Your roles are soon reversed when you’re brought back into reality by an adult’s voice, your hands losing contact as you break away, looking at your mother with a glare in your eyes.

“Look, Ms Park has a piano! Go and play something for us, sweetie.”

A pained sigh escapes your lips, seemingly already knowing you won’t get out of this no matter how hard you try or plead, slowly walking over to the instrument settled in the corner of the room, cracking your knuckles and humming to yourself, thinking of what song to play.

“Jisung plays too, actually!” his aunt chimes in, and he sighs, halting in his movements,

because one, he can’t play the piano, and two, the song rolling off your fingers is so beautiful, so melodic he secretly starts to hope that he did.

Park Jisung can’t believe himself in the very moment when he’s standing at the rocky beach with you, clearing his throat and scratching the back of his neck every few seconds in a poor attempt of calming down his nerves and the erracting beating of his heart. He’s only 18 and has no experience with girls, so he thinks this is the sheer effect of the fact that he can’t swim well and he’s afraid of embarrassing himself in front of you– he bets you’re not strong enough to bring out his drowning body out of the depths of the lake anyways, so it really must be fear that’s holding him down from undressing in front of you and jumping into the refreshing water.

“Come on, Park Jisung, what are you waiting for?” you jab at him, a sharp finger pointing straight to his ribs. Your top is already off, a peach-colored bikini top catching Jisung’s attention that he instantly averts and focuses on the shiny water instead, worried he’d get caught if his eyes lingered a bit more. Again, Park Jisung is only 18 and he barely leaves the house– the only girl in a bikini he’s ever seen were the actors in the movies he watched on TV or the characters in the anime he once binged watched in the middle of the night, and those curves were drawn-on, on top of that. He doesn’t know what to do around a girl, and holding a conversation is suddenly that harder when his eyes keep drifting towards your body.

“I- I can’t really swim,” he mumbles out, another set of scratching his neck taking place, the slowly burning skin on the sharp sun making him shift in discomfort.

“Fuck’s sake,” a curse escapes your mouth, the word catching the poor boy off-guard even more, since he’s not used to anyone speaking in that tone around him– with the exception of his parents when they argue, of course, but he’d rather not bring up the memory– and his big eyes scan you again, surprised and almost a little worried of your next actions, “well, I’m not getting 10 pounds this way, am I? Didn’t know the uptown boy can’t swim…” you mutter under your breath before you shake your head in disbelief and shrug off your shorts, throwing the clothing towards the beach towel sprawled out on the shore.

Now, Jisung tries really really hard not to look at your bum. That would be really embarrassing– truly humiliating– and he’s a gentleman, of course. And it doesn’t make it better that the whole journey here, you were rambling about your day and about how bored you are in this little village, and he found the scrunch of your nose so adorable, because now he has the crushing reality dawning up on him that he’s 18 and finally having a sexual awakening. No, he won’t stare at your body. He’s simply not allowed.

“What are you waiting for? Are you gonna go into the water in your clothes?” you ask again, looking him up and down when he doesn’t move.

“Oh, I was just thinking I could… you know, stay here and hang out by myself until you’re done swimming, or something…” he says, and the more words that spill out of his mouth, the more embarrassed he feels, because your gaze suddenly locks with his and you seem so amused by his rambling, you find his words so hilarious, he doesn’t miss a heartbeat before he sighs more-so to himself and takes off his shirt, clearing his throat awkwardly when he finds you staring at his naked skin.

“Glad you got the memo,” you muster up, shaking your head in disbelief and tying your hair up into a neat bun. “I swear it’s not that deep from the corners, you’re not gonna drown. Your aunt would kick my head off if I left you here to fry,” you mumble and Jisung hates how it sounds like you’re truly only here because you have to, because the more seconds he spends staring into your eyes trying to predict your next move, the more he wishes you were here because you were only slightly interested in spending time with the new kid in the village– him.

“Alright,” he mumbles, and when he’s finally only in his swimming suit, taking cautious steps and following you towards the water, he finds his anxiety levels rising, because the truth is, he’s never swam in a lake before. Sure, he’s been in pools– but those aren’t so scary. He can almost always feel the bottom of it under his feet and he knows they don’t get as deep. Surely, there is a little to no possibility of him drowning in a swimming pool. Lakes, however, are a different thing. He can’t reach the bottom, and if he does, the surface is disgusting and slippery and won’t help him to his feet– if he really got too stiff and panicked, he could die. And that’s perhaps what scares him the most as he takes the first step on the slick rock at the very edge of the water, the slight stumble of his feet only making him more aware of the reality that’s in front of him.

“You’re such a scaredy cat,” you tease him when you look at him from behind your shoulder, a grin on your face acting like a sucker punch towards Jisung’s gut. And the truth is, he’d be more relaxed if you just gave him a minute– to collect his thoughts, calm his erracting heartbeat as he’d tell himself that there’s nothing to worry about and that the water here truly isn’t as deep yet and the worst thing that could happen is that he lands on his ass, but you don’t give him a chance to do so as your hand slips into his– trying to steady him, as you walk deeper into the water.

Your soft hand in his, fingers intertwined, he finds himself holding on to you like a lifeline– because in his tragic imagination, you might as well be one– and the beating of his heart only gets faster when he gets painfully aware of the sweat pooling in the palms of his hand and the very apparent hesitance in his step. If you notice it, you don’t mention it– to which Jisung’s equal parts surprised and glad, and suddenly, his figure is waist-level in the water before he even has a chance to register it and your hand lets go of his, the momentarily hypnotization of your hold escaping him when he has to face you as he stands still in the cool liquid.

You’re staring at him with a flashy smile, expecting eyes waiting for him to react to you in any way– and when nothing comes, you must realize that he’s too starstrucked by your appearance to muster up anything coherent enough.

“You alright there?”

He finds himself nodding, a hum escaping his throat to accompany his response. It’s not enough for you, though, and the truth is, Park Jisung should’ve been prepared for this, since even the two days of knowing you must be enough to get to know the true intentions of your actions– because you tease him again, and even though the boy gets sulky easily, he doesn’t seem to find himself paying it much mind.

“A cat got your tongue?” you snicker, shaking your head at him.

For a second, Jisung debates on acting dumb– maybe more silence or a shrug of his shoulders would rile you up more, get you more annoyed– but he should’ve learned already that you’re always one step ahead of him, in more cases than one, when a splash of cold water hits his heated skin, making him hiss in shock.

Your laughter fills his ears as he watches you stand still in front of him, presumably not expecting much threat from the boy that’s barely able to move in the lake, but the angelic look on your face acts like a dopamine kick for the boy, vitamin D flowing through his veins as he reacts to your teasing with another splash of water, feet delicately chasing you around the lake, screeches coming out your throat like music to his ears on the sunny summer afternoon.

The water fight ends with him tripping over a stone as he tries to run away from you, and the shock on your face is evident– Jisung finds himself feeling endearment at the hint of you worrying about him– when you rush towards the boy and lean over his body sitting in the water, Jisung’s worst-case scenario coming to life right in front of your eyes.

“Are you okay?” you ask, a hand offered to him to get him back up on his feet.

And Jisung takes it, only to tug you down towards him, his body shielding you from the impact, but still hitting the ice-cold water of the lake. With your face only centimeters away from his, your annoyed, yet amused face causing him to grin, he finds himself laughing at your next remark.

“I take it as today’s worthy of a tenner then, Park Jisung. Having too much fun, aren’t you?”

To Park Jisung, summer feels like sleep and the humid air in his little room back home. He’s never really been anywhere on vacations or holidays, because frankly, with his father’s nature and his mother’s low income job, there wasn’t really much space to go somewhere and explore what it’s like to enjoy the summer heat instead of constantly angrily swearing at the weather. For that matter, Park Jisung never really enjoyed summer. He was always locked up in that small room, sometimes listening to his parents’ arguing– which he so desperately tried to ignore every time, but his heart did that weird hammering each time his father broke a glass or his mother raised her voice a bit louder than usual– and when his parents weren’t arguing, the house would be too quiet, making him overthink.

To Park Jisung, summer feels like overslept afternoons and boredom. He doesn’t know any better, and he would even pity himself, but the truth is, he thinks that’s embarrassing. People have it worse, after all– he’s just a teenager with no life purpose. Just like any other, right?

So when Jisung arrives at his aunt’s place for the summer– no longer having to listen to his parents’ arguing, because after 18 years of his life, they finally decided to call it quits and drag their son to the only relative he vaguely knows for the time being, until they figure everything out– he expects nothing more from the old house than what he experienced his whole growing up. He expects overslept afternoons and sweaty pajamas clinging to his back, humid air everywhere and the weird hollowness in the pit of his stomach.

To his surprise– and believe me, he didn’t really expect this at all– the summer before university is completely different, and he’s pleased with the change.

He wakes up late one afternoon, because he doesn’t expect anything exciting to happen in the time he spends asleep anyway, and when he drags his feet to the kitchen, body tense and hurting from the weird positions he found himself sleeping in, his mind is instantly sweeped of all the haziness when he founds your figure in his aunt’s house, laughing at the radio host babbling through the device.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” his aunt greets him from the corner of the room, and he’s suddenly too aware of his bed hair and the fact that his clothing is all wrinkled and his face is puffy, because he feels your eyes on him and he hates to know that you see him in such state. Not that he’s any eye candy any other day, of course– he just thinks you could’ve seen him in a more presentable light, that’s all.

“G’morning,” he mutters as he scratches the back of his neck and looks around the room, trying to grasp the events of 1PM– barely morning anymore.

“If you woke up earlier, you could’ve gone with us,” his aunt chirps in from the stove, swirling something sweet-smelling in a big pot. Her face is fawned over with a glaze of sweat and even the wide-open window does nothing to get the air to clear out– Jisung thinks that’s just the magic of summer. It’s always too hot, and the only thing you can do is complain.

“Where did you go?”

“To the forest,” you smile at him, seeing as he takes a few hesitant steps towards your figure, “we picked berries and now your aunt’s making jam. A classic village-like summer activity, don’t ya think?” you chirp, tugging your hair behind your ear as you pick through the big bowl and put away the berries that don’t look as good, choosing to not include them in the jam.

Jisung hums in agreement, still a little confused, as he takes another few steps around the room. Looking over his aunt’s shoulder, he sees the blood colored liquid boiling at the stove, the air even sweeter right above the steam, and he suddenly wonders if this is today’s activity. Looking over his shoulder at you, dressed in shorts and a tank top, he shrugs to himself– if it means that you’ll be over at his house the whole time the jam’s being made, he doesn’t mind helping out in the kitchen.

“Can you wash these?” you ask, pointing towards the bowl full of berries. He nods to your order and takes it over to the sink, carefully splashing water over the fruit and making sure each piece is clean– he doesn’ want to embarrass himself in front of you. Frankly, he doesn’t know what’s going on or how exactly jam is made, but you seem like you’re a regular in those activities– he doesn’t want you to think he’s a city guy with no knowledge of how the world works. Because that’s kind of true, but you don’t have to know that.

Bringing the bowl over to the table again, he watches as you look up at him from the next bowl you’re currently sorting through, raising your brows in question at his stare. The boy almost wants to look away from being caught, but he figures it’s too late anyway, so he challenges you and waits for you to jab at him or roll your eyes.

Instead, you pick up one berry from the bowl and press it up against his lips, an innocent smile playing with your features as you wait for him to eat it, looking at him with expecting eyes.

“Delicious, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely magical,” Jisung replies, overly-exaggerated, seeing you grin. He steals himself another berry from the bowl, escaping from the playful slap you want to give to the palm of his hand, before he sits on the chair opposite of yours, silently watching you doing your task.

“Now, today’s events might not be as exciting, so you can save your next 10 pounds, but once your aunt’s hands get tired, you can take over and stir the jam while it cooks,” you explain, teasing him with your little inside joke– you’re not actually getting paid for hanging out with him. Not really, although Jisung did buy you ice cream on your way home from the lake the other day. So in a way, you are. Just not with real money.

“So fun!” he says, watching you as you roll your eyes.

The truth is, he doesn’t care much about what he does during the day. As long as you’re present, he’s satisfied.

To Park Jisung, summer feels like overslept afternoons, his little humid room back home and boredom. This afternoon, the smell of berries, the sound of the radio and your bubbly laugh when you tease him joins the mix– and he thinks those overpower the grudge he has against the season with such measures he prays every day feels like summer from now on.

The room is kind of chilly when Jisung rests his back against the tall bookshelf– the side of the furniture, so the shelves aren’t uncomfortable against his back– eyes glued to the pages of the book. He finds himself too immersed in the story to notice anyone coming into his aunt’s living room, too occupied with the sentences to hear the shuffling of your feet as you drag your legs across the house. His aunt always lets you in with no questions– you only knock on the door and smile at her when she opens it, slickly jumping inside and finding who you’re looking for in one of the few rooms of the house– more often than not, you catch Park Jisung off guard, but he is starting to get used to the euphoric surprise.

Jisung is an avid reader. He’s liked books since he was little, and it was the only thing he found himself spending money on growing up. When the amount of books he could read in one month became too big for him to keep buying more and more prints, his mother took him to the town to get him his own library card.

After looking through the bookshelf in his aunt’s house, he was surprised– and a little annoyed– at the fact that there were only romance books in store. He already finished the copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy he brought with himself when his parents sent him off, and he didn’t really think of bringing more. Finding his aunt’s bookshelf was like finding a treasure, only if the contents weren’t so disappointing. Still, a romance book is better than no book, he thinks, as he picks a familiar one up and sits on the floor, immersing himself into the story.

“What are you reading?” he suddenly hears, head snapping up to see you watching him from above, eyes skimming through the words.

“A book,” he responds, voice low, before his eyes are back on the pages.

“I can see that, genius,” you snicker, situating yourself next to him and resting your back against the bookshelf, “what book is it?” you pry more, and even though you are almost always the main object of Park Jisung’s attention and thoughts, this time, you are set to the second place as he continues to read the novel.

You are rewarded with silence, a thing that makes your brows furrow and a sigh escape your lips. You’re not used to this kind of treatment, it seems, and when the interested teenager doesn’t give you his time of the day, you have no other choice but to ask for it yourself, no matter how embarrassing it might feel. You’re okay with biting it down– you know he won’t try to tease you about it anyways.

“Jisung, give me attention,” you simply say, jabbing your finger to his thigh.

“I’m reading.”

“I came to visit you!” you act offended, an over-exaggerated sigh escaping your lips.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Jisung mumbles, still reading through the pages, although his focus is now a little thrown-off.

Giving yourself a few seconds to think, chewing on the inside of your cheek, you shrug. “Okay, then. Read it out loud, so I’m entertained too.”

“It’s the middle of the book, Y/N–”

“Come on, I read The great Gatsby before anyway,” you say as you nestle a little in your place, resting your back flush against the shelf again, “read for me so we don’t sit in silence,” you order.

Jisung spares you a glance, a second of eye contact enough for him to be convinced, huffing before he averts his eyes back to the book and clears his throat, reading aloud.

He doesn’t like to be the center of attention. He doesn’t like it when everyone’s eyes are on him and he feels them watching, he absolutely despises the fact that he’s the only thing you’re focused on as he reads through the words and his voice shakes a little at each passage. He feels his face heartening and sweat slowly forming on his forehead, each of his fingertips tingling with the fact that he’s the only thing you’re paying attention to right now, your only object of interest.

“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete,” he reads, and when he feels your head resting on his shoulder, your soft hair tickling the sensitive skin of his neck, he almost jumps out of his own skin and crawls under the ground, because somewhere along the way, he admits in shame, in his imagination, you turned into the main character.

Laying on the floor of his aunt’s living room, listening to the vinyl you popped into the record player just a few minutes prior to leaving the room to get some tea from his aunt, Park Jisung no longer wishes for the ground to swallow him whole and for the ceiling to fall down and bury him in the deepest depths of this house. He listens deeply to the music– the loud guitars and the ringing of the drums, so dearly reminding him of the beating of his own heart that involuntarily matches the song somewhere between the verse and the chorus– and when you slip back inside, carrying a tray with two mugs in the very middle, Jisung’s eyes unconsciously watch you as you walk through the space. It’s a weird parallel that makes him snicker.

“Why are you just laying here?” you nudge him with your leg, his figure limp on the floor. “We didn’t come here to lay around, little boy.”

“Just give me a few more minutes,” he hums as he nods, looking at you from below, the curves of your face and the glow on the tips of your cheekbones making his heartbeat stummer for just a beat, an excited glint in his stomach making itself known when you grin at him and your eyes bear into his with an uncertain feeling of mischief and playfulness.

“Are you mentally preparing, or something?”

“Something like that,” he admits, sighing to himself when you offer him a hand and beg him to stand up with your eyes, your skin soft under his touch when he hosts himself up and stands aimlessly in the middle of the room.

You stand in front of him, stiff, for only a few seconds. The eye contact you share makes Jisung feel electrified, but he doesn’t find himself averting his gaze– he’s too scared that you’d find him cowardly, or too shy to meet your glances. And even though it might be true and your whole existence is of exciting importance to the boy, he doesn’t want to show it to you so bluntly, so he chooses to bury those hints and stand his ground, waiting for you to look away first. He didn’t expect you to take it as a challenge– but when his still body annoys you a bit too much, he earns himself a bump to his shoulder, the contact of your tightened fist making him break into a victorious grin.

“Move!”

Jisung takes a step to his left, seeing as you roll your eyes at his teasing manner– normally you’re the one taking the lead in playful banter, but he’s feeling bold today, energized with whatever spirit– and you notice, hating the way he has the upper hand over you for once, deciding to once again take the matters to your own hands and lead him through the situation, grabbing him by his hand and strongly pulling him towards either side of the room, rolling your hips in your place and jumping around, laughing when he doesn’t seem to obey your strategy.

“Jisung-ah! You promised,” you pout, the soft demand in your tone making the boy sigh in defeat and roll his eyes at you, because if you’re good at something, it’s using your words and taking advantage of his weakness for you. And so he does what you want him to, finally holding you more firmly when his hands miraculously find your waist and he dances with you to the rock music– jumping around and twirling the two of you in the middle of the room, because there aren’t many dance moves you can do to this kind of music unless you’re really skilled– and there it is, the wide grin settling onto your face, like a sweet, sweet reward to the boy.

Because even though you really wanted to have fun with Jisung– to get the promised tenner, you said– your mum didn’t let you go to the party in town, no matter how hard you pleaded and tried to reason with her that Jisung’s gonna be there with you to protect you. His aunt knew better than to believe the claim– if there’s someone needing protection, it’s her nephew, and being the one that’s supposed to do the job might be too much pressure for the poor boy.

And when you pouted and mourned about the fact while breaking the news to Jisung yesterday afternoon, he found himself promising you that you can have your own party at his house, dancing around and having even more fun listening to his aunt’s outdated records and drinking chamomile tea that’s surely better than whatever alcohol they are serving in the town.

He’s not a good dancer. The music is not his cup of tea. But hearing your laughter piercing through his eardrums whenever he dips you down or does a silly dance solo just to impress you with his playfulness, he finds himself being content.

He hasn’t laughed this hard in a long while. He says it’s because of your outrageous ideas.

Deep inside, though, he knows it’s because of your sole presence.

“You already finished The Great Gatsby?” you ask, your soft voice cutting through the solemn wind. Jisung glances up at you from his spot next to your figure, the two of you sitting under the tree behind his house, silence enveloping you two like a blanket, only disturbed by the chirping of birds and cicadas in the distance.

He nods. “I’m a fast reader,” he snickers.

“You must have liked the book,” you mumble, your head falling to his shoulder as you nestle in your place a little, the book in your lap still open as you engage in the conversation with him. You’re wearing a summer dress, your bruised knees on full display, and something about the air smelling like strawberries makes him think and wonder of the fact that this feels a little too much like a date, but he’s too afraid to let the thought ring out loud.

“Not really,” he states, “I don’t like romance novels.”

“You don’t?” you ask, the statement taking you off guard.

“No.”

“Why?”

“They’re not realistic,” he mutters under his nose.

“You don’t believe in love?” you ask, your eyes locking with his in a curious manner. The more he bears his eyes into yours, the more he watches as the glimmers in your orbs swim around and hypnotize him, the more he wishes he could say yes, the more he yearns to tell you that he does, he always has and he always will believe in love, but smiling to himself, more out of despair than out of anything, he shakes his head in disapproval and sees the shadow casting over your face, breaking him.

“Why?” you ask, the tone of your voice almost hurt, as if it was a question of life and death.

“Because… it doesn’t seem real. It’s all an illusion, a chemical reaction, even, it’s- it’s not forever, you know? It messes with your brain and makes you feel dizzy for a while, and then after a while, you realize you don’t feel the same anymore and it was all just a lack of judgment. I don’t think love exists,” he says, “or at least, I don’t think it can last.”

Your eyes watch him with a newly found sense, something in your brain turning fast as you chew on the inside of your cheek, and he can see it in your eyes– you want to disagree with him, you want to tell him that he’s stupid and silly and he doesn’t know anything, he’s just too burdened with what’s going on in his life and that he judges everything by the image of love that was fed to him by his parents; the love that didn’t last, the love that didn’t exist– but you don’t say anything along those lines, maybe in a quiet understanding, knowing it won’t change his mind, knowing it’s not your place to tell him otherwise.

Instead, you only bear your eyes back into the pages of your book and sigh. “I disagree. Because, Jisung, tell me,” you say, sighing before you continue, “how could it not be real, when everyone writes about it? When everyone sings about it, yearns for it and so desperately wants it? How could it not last when this book is older than any of us, yet it’s still considered one of the most trivial parts of romance?”

He watches you from above, the crown of your head now in his point of view when he listens to your voice. “You should be kissed often, and by someone who knows how,” you read, “isn’t that beautiful, Jisung? Isn’t that love? Don’t tell me it’s all an illusion.”

Your eyes don’t meet his when you speak those words. Not able to focus back on his own reading, he becomes painfully aware of your head on his shoulder again, the soft tickling of your hair against his neck– and he finds himself thinking that if love is an illusion, a chemical reaction, a lack of judgment, even– if love doesn’t last, if it’s all just a drunkenness that makes him dizzy, he doesn’t mind.

At the end of the day, what matters might just be the present moment. And if this doesn’t last, he’s content with how he’s feeling for you now– even though it might fizzle out, he’s grateful for the things you’ve taught him.

Park Jisung’s summer is filled with him staring at you in your summer dress, with him watching you when you ramble on and on about something that makes barely any sense in his brain, with you dancing around the room and playing the piano in his aunt’s living room, the melodies sometimes lullying him to dreams filled with your scent and your voice calling from him when he wakes from his slumber.

Your face is the image that fills his brain when he thinks of sunny days, and somewhere along the way, he stopped trying to conceal the subtle infatuation he has over you, for you no longer tease him for his gentle stares and allow him to admire you in silence.

Today, much like all other days, he finds himself in your company. Sitting in the meadow, side by side– you convinced him he’d like the sight, but he finds himself watching you smile instead– the smell of strawberries fills his nose when you take out your lip balm and put it on, your soft lips suddenly glistening with the moisture, a pinkish tint like a subtle overlay over your smile. Indulged into the motion, Jisung can’t seem to look away, and he could play it off as him so desperately wanting to know if the lip balm tastes as delicious as it smells, but suddenly, all he can think about it how he wants to kiss you and how if he doesn’t look away soon, he won’t be able to control the urge.

But Jisung’s always been too weak when it comes to you. Eyes glued to your lips, still talking about philosophical themes the boy could never wrap his mind around, never in a million years, the stream of words is suddenly cut off your lips when he presses his against them, tasting the sweetness off your skin. And his suspicions were correct– the lip balm is as tasty as it smells, yet, even better than he could expect, tasting more of strawberries dipped in honey– but in his mind, the sweetness you and not the lip balm, and when your palm meets his cheek and holds him in place, he feels close to falling apart right in your hold, a fragile pot full of love and affection for you only, eyes pressed shut from nerves.

He doesn’t think he’s a good kisser. It’s his first time and he never really thought about the action before– never had the opportunity or the right person to prompt the thought into his head. He tries hard to ignore the thought of him being bad at the action, because he doesn’t want to ruin this memory for himself, and as you pull away for a heartbeat and then press yourself into him once more, he finds himself forgetting the time, space and the whole universe– there’s only you, you, you.

And he could lie to himself and convince himself that he kissed you just to taste the strawberries on his tongue, but it’s far from the simple reality– he kissed you just to kiss you.

Not thinking of the future this holds to him, not thinking of the fact that one day, you’ll have to say goodbye. Not thinking of much more, not expecting any difference in your dynamic. Deep down, he doesn’t even really want things to change– he likes the stillness, the security it holds. He kissed you just to kiss you– it was that simple. The desire was too strong to hold back. It was gentle, it was sweetness, and he found himself wondering how come it took him such a while.

Laying on the floor of his aunt’s living room with you, listening to the silence ringing in his ears and making his brain wander, Park Jisung wishes for the ground to swallow him whole and for the ceiling to fall down and bury him in the deepest depths of this house. He hasn’t felt like this in a while, too enchanted with your presence to realize the weight of the situation, too immersed in the blissful unknowingness than paying attention to the stresses that even brought him to his aunt’s house in the first place, but his head starts to spin as he dives in deeper to his thoughts, letting the fear swallow him. He once again wonders what would happen if he just left the room, left his aunt’s house and ran away so far no one could ever find him– it’s a familiar tale now, but he’s never really quite reached the end.

“What are you thinking about?” your voice breaks him out of the tense slumber, his eyes growing wide as he snaps his head to watch you next to him, your orbs filled with tender care and worry. The outside world is slowly turning into a little less vibrant one, the summer nights growing colder with the undeniable fact of the season ending soon, autumn taking its place and Park Jisung’s own departure slowly burning at the tips of his toes.

He doesn’t like to think about it, but it’s inevitable. Maybe he should pay it more mind.

“Home,” he mumbles, squinting his eyes as he turns his head back straight and watches the spiderwebs in the corner, the weight of his words making the atmosphere thicker. “It’s not gonna be the same,” he adds, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

The silence doesn’t go away as your hand envelopes his, your fingers playing with his in a calming manner, yet still having a playful aura to it as you tug on the joints of his fingers and wave them around in the air, eyes focused on the way his palm fits into yours. “Isn’t that a good thing?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” he answers.

And it’s true. He doesn’t know– fights and anger and bad temper is all he’s ever known, all he’s ever been used to. The silent treatment and the petty arguments are what raised him, and now that it’s gone, he wonders if it’s gonna make him feel better. The truth is, sometimes, feeling like this can feel essential. It feels safe to be so miserable, for when the bright times of him and his parents being okay and getting along happened, he’s always felt unsure, like the storm was about to happen each time; like he couldn’t be happy for long, because it felt uncomfortably unsafe, having the hunch that it’s gonna get bad again any time. Feeling numb was safe. It couldn’t get worse than that– it’s what made him comfortable with his sadness.

And if it’s true that it’s gonna be better now, just because his parents are gonna be separated and they’re not gonna be in contact, is it really okay for him to feel happy about that? Is it really the end? The calm after the storm of his childhood and growing up? And is it okay to feel secure in loneliness? To feel okay with seeing his mother wither away and his dad turning to alcohol every time he visits him in his new house? Because he can picture it now– he sees it clear as day, that this is how the situation’s gonna end up, and he doesn’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing.

“It’s gonna be okay,” you mumble, a poor attempt at soothing the boy.

He finds it hard to believe you. Sometimes he thinks you know everything– you’ve seen so much and taught him so much and told him so much about the world. But can you really know anything about a situation you’ve never encountered?

Still, his hopeless heart swells at your words, the comfort of your hand in his guarding him to reality. He thinks he made you up sometimes– he longed for something to comfort him so hard and for so long that the longing grew legs and followed him around, brightened up his withering days.

“I’m scared to come home,” he whispers, the tone barely audible in the so still room. He’s scared of what he’ll find. Sometimes he thinks he’s scared of the silence, for he was brought up in violent screams and doors always left a bit open– just in case. Is it going to be fine for him to find peace after the violence?

You lean up and watch the boy with eyes bigger than the whole universe, a soft smile playing with your features when your fingers trail the curve of his cheek. Jisung watches your lips and dreams of them on his, but there’s no use when you only trace the arch of his cupid's bone with the pad of your thumb, voice barely louder than a whisper, as if confiding him in a secret. “You’re gonna be okay.”

And with that, you’re gone. Like a dream. Your touch fades and your scent is forcefully dragged away from his nose.

After a few seconds, you play the piano for him again. He recognizes the song to be the same one you played on the first day you two met– and he wonders if it’s your favorite, or if you just don’t know how to play anything as well. The melody is often slow, romantic and idyllic, but builds into an intense complexity. Towards the end, the initial melody returns, bringing a sense of resolution and tranquility. He doesn’t know the name of the song– he’s never heard of it before meeting you– but in his soul, the feelings of love, longing and enchantment remain as he listens to the harmonies and passionate melody.

Laying on the floor of his aunt’s living room, listening to the song you play for him on the piano, so many words unsaid but hanging in the air, Park Jisung closes his eyes and feels a stray tear rolling down his cheek. The air smells of autumn when the breeze flows into the room through the open window, making the hairs on his arm stand up in attention, and his head starts to spin as he dives in deeper to the music, the classical tunes almost making him overthink more than he has before. He wonders what will happen if you left the room right now. If he’ll ever find you, wherever you are.

Laying on the floor of his aunt’s living room, listening to the song you play for him on the piano, so many words unsaid but hanging in the air, Park Jisung closes his eyes and lets himself fall into a soft slumber, the same way he did the first time you walked through the door to his life. During the sleep, he dreams of love.

Park Jisung opens his eyes on the last day of summer and feels coldness seeping into his bones. It’s not cold yet, the season hasn’t even ended, but there’s something about the aura of the morning that makes him crawl in his own skin and dread the day in front of him. After today, he’s supposed to come back home– he’s going to leave everything the summer taught him behind, in this little village, with his aunt he’s grown to adore more than he initially thought he could. It’s kind of depressing, if you really think about it, but Jisung would rather not think at all.

He sits up on the bed, burrowing his head into his palms and huffs heavily at the thoughts running through his brain. He’s not a morning person, sure, but he thinks perhaps his sudden mood change is the result of something completely else– something he doesn’t yet know and can’t quite put his finger on, can’t quite name.

Standing up and walking out of his room, naked feet in contact with the hardwood floor, the clique of the door feels unusually cold against his hand when he reaches for it, opening it and getting ready to face the day. He hasn’t said goodbye to you yet, but he knows he’ll have to today. It’s the last opportunity before he walks out of summer break for real, the last opportunity to see your smile and to hold you in his arms like he always yearned for whenever you were in his close proximity.

Yet, as he gets ready to take the first step out of the room, his feet come to contact with something sharp, a block-like object waiting for him outside of the door. Squinting below his toes, he finds a book on the hard tiles, picking it up and moving it closer up towards his nose. Reading over the title and the author’s name, his heart drops to his stomach, an unreasonable feeling of fear settling in his fingertips as he turns the page and reads through the contents, something scribbled on the first, worn-out page of the book catching his attention.

To my Jisung. Think of me when you read through the pages. You said you didn’t like romance novels, but I know you’re secretly a sucker for them. Always in your heart, Y/N.

A kiss mark in bright red is settled below the inscription, the lipstick stain he rarely ever seen you wear does nothing else than makes his heartbeat quicken and his fear intensify. He doesn’t have it confirmed yet, but in the depths of his mind and soul, he already knows– he knows it’s too late and you didn’t say goodbye before you left.

Still, his feet act before his brain does, his blurry vision ignored when he runs out of his aunt’s house and makes a jog towards the one you were staying at through the summer break. He puts on the first pair of shoes he finds at the doorstep and takes off, his aunt’s concerned yells ignored as he clutches the book to his chest, something about the beaten edges reminding him of the fact that it’s the one you always read in the shade under the single tree in the whole meadow, and it’s confirmed when he gets to your house– your parents’ car nowhere in sight, the windows shut and everything so intensely lonely.

And that’s when he allows himself to break– to fold at the grass in front of your house, to open the book and randomly find the sentence you quoted to him once, breaking his heart into a million different shatters. “You should be kissed often, and by someone who knows how,” he reads, and when his eyes trail over the next pages, he sees each one annotated, words scribbled on the sides of the pages, pretty quotes underlined. You left a piece of you with him, for him to keep, and he should feel lucky, for he has something to remember you by even though you’re long gone, but he just can’t get past the melody you played on the piano replaying over and over in his brain, reminding him that

you left without a goodbye and he doesn’t know what he’s going to do once he moves back home and you’re not going to be there, and oh how badly he wishes you kissed him for the last time yesterday, for he can’t remember how your lips felt against his anymore and he fears he may never feel the way he did when he was kissed by you ever again.

Rustling through the book, there’s a lone sheet of paper tucked behind the last page. Slowly walking home, head hung low, his eyes scanning the music sheet, the title of the song sits unfamiliar on his tongue when he repeats it under his breath like a broken mantra made to bring you back.

He promises himself to learn how to play it on the piano one day, just so he could hear it again. There’s an inkling feeling in him that the song might be important.

Wobbling through the classroom, happy that the bell finally rang and he can go home, Park Jisung hears his name called from the mouth of his Creative writing professor, much to his dismay, making him stop in his tracks and follow his voice with a low sigh. It’s Friday and it’s raining outside, meaning that if he won’t catch the last tram home, he’ll have to run through the rain without an umbrella, and that really wasn’t on his checklist for the week.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like he hates this class or his Creative writing professor in the slightest. It’s quite the opposite, really– this class serves good to his vivid imagination and the daydreaming he practices every night before sleeping and sometimes even when he takes a long shower. His professor is nice as well– young enough to understand the minds that are filling the classroom, only getting his master’s degree recently– but still mature enough to lead the class in a way that makes everyone respect him in a healthy way. But today, on a rainy, gray Friday, after the last class of the week, Jisung really doesn’t feel like talking to Mr Kim in the slightest.

“Did you want to talk to me about something?” Jisung asks as soon as the classroom empties itself out and he is standing face to face with his professor. The man nods, taking his glasses off and putting them onto his desk, quickly turning around to his student again and only starting to talk once he makes sure the classroom is completely empty, just to stay confidential.

“Yes, I did,” he says. Humming under his breath as he turns around again, he searches through the papers sitting on the desk, seemingly looking for the ones that belong to Jisung, and clears his breath as he faces the boy again and furrows his brows at the writing on the paper.

“Is something wrong?” Jisung asks, full of concern. The truth is that the Creative writing class is one of the only classes that maintain his grades below the lowest level– the one that gets you kicked out of the university– and the face his professor’s currently making is surely not a one that seeps of satisfaction. It’s only natural for Jisung to feel worried, because with how badly he’s doing in Physics, he surely can’t afford to get a bad grade even in a class that’s supposed to come easily to him.

“No, no,” Mr Kim shakes his head in a hurry to quickly calm his student down, ��it’s just…” trailing off, his eyes swiftly moving across the letters Jisung finished writing a few weeks ago, just a day before handing the first part of his assignment in, reading the first few lines over one more time. Jisung finds himself feeling irritated and frustrated, for his professor should be the one that’s good with words, but in this situation, he feels like he’s not telling him anything.

“What is it, then?” he asks, diving straight in. If he gets it out of him now, he might even catch the last tram, as long as he runs to the tram stop…

“Look, Jisung. What I’m going to tell you now might not make you happy, but I think it’s crucial for you,” he says, looking kindly, yet still firmly at the boy, “your writing… I like it. Quite honestly, I find it phenomenal. You have a way with words that just… when you explain feelings, you go into depths and details, and I find that really interesting from a boy like you.”

Jisung doesn’t know what the premise of his words are, and the sudden praise catches him off-guard, since he thought he’s going to get scolded. Furrowing his brows and muttering low words of appreciation, his professor continues with his little ment, finally clarifying his intentions. “But I have an issue with this,” he says, pointing to the papers in his hands, meeting eyes with Jisung again, “it’s not that it’s bad. Not at all, I said what I said, I really find your writing the best in this class. However, I think it lacks something.”

Stepping from one foot to the other, Jisung chews on the inside of his cheek, confused. “And what does it lack, sir?”

“Emotion,” he deadpans, looking straight into his eyes. The words surprise him, making him furrow his brows at the explanation, mumbling in confusion.

“But… but you just said I describe emotions well?”

“That’s true, Jisung, however… Your works are full of emotion, but I don’t think those emotions are yours. You’re describing something you don’t feel, something you don’t understand, and that makes me feel like you’re trying to sell me something you’re constantly having to make yourself believe is real,” Mr Kim answers, switching his tone into a more considerate one, “I like your imagination, I like the plot, however, this all means that your writing lacks any real depth.”

Jisung gasps at the harsh words, the reality of them making him sink a little in his place. “I thought a lot about the plot and the intentions of the characters, I really don’t know what I did wrong–”

“If this was any other student in this classroom that handed in this work, I’d praise them for outdoing themselves. It’s good. It’s almost perfect, I’d say, and I mean that. But when it comes to you, Jisung…” he trails off again, trying to find the right words, “I think you can do better. I know you can do better, only if you actually cared a bit about the things you write. Did you enjoy writing this? Did you like this work?”

“I… I did- I think I do?” he stammers, answer sounding almost like a question,

Mr Kim stares at him for a while, almost as if he’s trying to make the boy realize the lies he’s telling from his own mouth right now, but when it doesn’t come, he just sighs and offers him the papers, watching the boy take them into his hold and stare at him, completely oblivious.

“Jisung, you’re writing like you have to do it. It doesn’t mean anything to you. At least this story doesn’t. And you know, I can see it in your words, it’s- you’re describing everything so deeply and so beautifully, but at the end of the day, you don’t like or care for anything you write, and that’s why it feels extraordinarily empty,” he says, watching the boys eyes widen and his lips form into a pout, nodding softly at his professor’s words.

“Does that mean… I’m gonna get a bad grade on my final assignment?” Jisung asks, lost.

Sighing, Mr Kim shakes his head and gazes at his student with eyes like an endless pool of honesty. “I want you to hand in something else. Don’t worry about getting in the deadlines, I’ll wait for you and grade this at the end of the semester. All I want is for you to write a story that means something to you. Don’t worry about the prompt, even, if that’s what’s making you feel limited. Just make me believe what you’re writing, Jisung.”

Nodding, Jisung finally understands the whole point of what his professor is telling him. Truth be told, Mr Kim is right– he does not care a bit about the story he wrote. While he can admit that he did a good job on it, he did well at writing about ghosts– the prompt for this semester’s final work (they focused on horror and mystery in literature this year)– he is ready to throw the papers into his drawer and never think of them again, for he just wrote what he was supposed to without giving it any minor significance. He might have described the emotions of the characters well, he might have used pretty words and astonishing abbreviations, but at the end of the day, if someone asked him how much the story he wrote means to him, he’d tell them that it mattered to him no more than a homework he had to complete.

“I understand, Mr Kim. I’ll… I’ll try again,” he says, nodding.

He’s rewarded by a gentle smile coming from his mentor, an expression full of understatement and honest care for his student. Taking a step back from him and leaning on the desk, the professor hints that he can go now, offering him one last sentence of condolence before he sets him out of the classroom.

“I’d hate for your talent to go to waste, Jisung.”

Smiling, although a little tight-lipped, the boy slowly walks to the door, nodding one last time before he leaves. “I’ll try not to disappoint, sir.”

The halls of the university are dark due to the stormy clouds shielding the sun from offering the light to the world. Sighing and checking the time on his phone, Jisung notices that he missed his last tram and the only way he can get home now is to jog through the pouring rain. Opening the glass door of the university building, grunting as he puts the hood of his jacket over his head, he runs through the falling raindrops, still thinking of the words his professor told him in the classroom just a few minutes ago.

Not looking in front of him as he runs, his body bumps into someone, making him utter honest, yet quick apologies as he jogs off after making sure the person is okay and didn’t drop anything, hating the way wet clothing sticks to his skin, making him feel almost a little claustrophobic. In the frantic hurry to get home as soon as possible, the boy doesn’t notice he dropped something on the floor–

the papers containing the latest story he wrote for the final assignment of his Creative writing class. Sitting in a puddle, somewhere in the middle of the street, the letters wash away with the afternoon rain, metaphorically erasing everything he wrote and didn’t care about in the past, moving him forward into a new direction.

Still, he looks behind his shoulder, ready to collect them from the ground just in case he might need them for something in the future, only to find the back of the person he just bumped into running away, a stack of white, water-stained A4 papers in their hands. Their walk is all too familiar to Jisung, the back of their head reminding him of something he’s experienced in the past, the sway of their hips and the jolt in their step making warmth erupt in his stomach at the fond memory that makes itself creep back into the boy’s head.

“It can’t be…” he mumbles.

The thought still fresh in his brain, the speculations making thoughts run around his mind faster than the speed of light, he opens up another Word document on his laptop as soon as he takes off his shoes in his mother’s new apartment, fingertips on fire. To write about something he cares for? Putting his everything into words that would mean something to him? It doesn’t seem as difficult right now.

Ghosts. The topic he found difficult to write about, for he’s never experienced anything paranormal before. He only tried to mimic everything he’s read about.

If anyone asked Park Jisung if he believed in ghosts, he’d tell them yes, however– for he has seen longing grow legs and follow him.

To write something he cares about, he decides– he’ll write about you.

He’ll write about the summer that even now, after so many months, feels like a dream.