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“Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn’t happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn’t seem broken at all.”
There are many names for the shadows that slip in through the windows at night— devil, darkness, demon— but Soobin has never seen Beomgyu that way.
He’s more than a shadow, more than a devil by the window. He’s the boy with sad eyes and sadder bones; hollow like a bird’s, his gossamer frame taking flight through the midnight sky and scattering like dust amongst the stars.
Soobin has always wondered why an angel would fall from grace. The answer comes to him one blistering cold, bruised-blue night: it’s because they’ve been searching for something all their lives.
***
How can a boy be made
of such intangible things?
The shadow of his throat;
the pale moon of his shoulder;
the smoke of his wing
Crack open that glass shield
let him slip through the gaps—
see what he brings.
***
The first time he sees the boy, he doesn’t startle. Nothing about the figure sitting by the moon sends alarm surging through his veins; his blood flows calm and quiet, his heart singing a steady beat. Soobin is prone to startling, prone to fright—
But here’s a Shadow, an entity people fear and whisper about in the dark, and yet Soobin has never felt more solid. He opens the window, and the figure tumbles through like a daydream.
“Where did you come from?” he asks the boy in a quiet voice.
The boy’s mouth twitches. “I fell from the stars.”
Soobin presses a cold hand to his own cheek. They don’t say another word for the rest of the night.
Then, whispered against the hem of dawn: “Fall again tomorrow.”
***
Stars are the dregs of heaven
leftover sediment,
tea leaf constellations
at the bottom of the mug
They catch between his teeth
those remnants of bliss
wormhole pupils; trembling fingers
oh, that bittersweet drug
***
The shadows only come in the depths of your despair, linger throughout the valleys of your life. Soobin has always been told that demons plant the roots of darkness in your heart and soul— only the truth is, they’ve got it the wrong way round.
He learns that the shadow has a name, and that the shadow murmurs you’re unhappy after staring right through him, and cups his face in his hands and sings to him until he sleeps.
“People say you bring nothing but misery,” Soobin mumbles one night as he’s slipping off into slumber. “But I’m not miserable at all.”
“What came first?” Beomgyu says with a wry smile, combing spiderweb fingers through his locks. “The chicken or the egg?”
“You’re unhappy,” Soobin says.
“Better you than me,” he says.
Better you than me. Every night. Soobin feels lighter, more peaceful. Beomgyu looks dimmer, more tortured. Better you than me.
You than me, he diffuses into Soobin’s breath, you than me, he paints into his hair.
“One day you’ll be happier,” Beomgyu says into his brow. “When that day comes, you’ll never see me again.”
“Why are you crying?” Soobin frowns. The moistness on the boy’s cheeks reflects the twilight, sadness turning his skin to moonstone.
“I don’t want to have to leave. But I need you to be happy.”
—Soobin kisses him first. He’s never done anything first in his life; never sought out the warmth of another; never sought to warm himself at all. He’s never done anything in his life, until he finally does, and Beomgyu tastes sweet. Beomgyu tastes like stolen honey, and Soobin no longer has a shadow, he no longer has a heart, and there’s a silhouette on the wall of two lovers interlocked in doomed embrace.
***
Have you ever heard a song
spun of sorrow?
Woven from threads of a bleeding heart
yarn of bitter stained with lust
If he comes again,
he’ll sing it for you tomorrow.
You’re pressing him into the sheets
knowing that it might be sin
But the flow of skin
beneath your fingers feels like salvation
and you think
You’re happier than you’ve ever been—
—He’d be happier than he’s ever been;
if he could come again tomorrow.
***
The next night, and the night after that, and the months after that, the seat by the window remains bare. Soobin begins to unravel.
***
Soobin’s chest aches like a pressed bruise; he wants to press the boy into him like gauze to an open wound, to saturate him with his longing.
“Why am I here?” Beomgyu blinks with owl eyes. The glow of them cuts slices through the dark.
“You left.”
“I’m not something that’s meant to stay. I never linger in one place forever.”
“I know.”
“You have to learn to be by yourself.”
“I know.”
“You have to learn to grow up.”
“Why?” Soobin’s eyes flash, his heart staccatoing in his mouth. “Have you?”
The boy’s shoulders stiffen. “You know I can’t help it.”
“Why did you come back? Why did you let me fall in love with you?” he asks brokenly. His voice slashes itself on the edges of his throat. Beomgyu looks at him like a helpless, mortal thing, and it’s the final nail in his coffin chest.
“I couldn’t help it.”
***
He will never stop leaving,
yet you love him still.
“Fall for me again tomorrow,” you whisper.
And the shadowed boy made of settled stardust,
the boy who will never grow old,
the boy who will always fall and never land,
looks you in the eye and says,
“I will.”