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The sound of sizzling ash as he takes a long drag of his cigarette fills the silence of the night. The air feels particularly frigid tonight as he’s hunched over their patio chair. It feels larger and louder than it usually does—the dichotomy of regret and bliss in going back to his unsightly nicotine addiction. But tonight, it’s a want he can’t continue to deny himself.
I’m so glad you’re quitting!
Grey smoke steamrolls out of his mouth, irritating his already red eyes. The smell fills his senses. Comforting. The warmth of it enters his lungs and leaves through his mouth, the seconds of euphoric high acting like a replacement for what he and Hanbin once had. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth. The parallels come to him, and he can’t help but numbly laugh at himself. Matthew wishes he could sincerely laugh, wishes that laughter came to him easily when he was around his boyfriend, his lover, his Hanbin. So many things he wishes weren’t reality.
The cigarette burns smaller and smaller the more hits he takes, dwindling down to a stubby length until he has to kill it. Matthew snuffs it out—the last one in the empty carton in his hand. And that’s it. Without another cigarette to mindlessly huff, he feels a bit ridiculous staying out here. He looks past his shoulder, past the sliding glass, at the still air in their apartment. It is almost pitch black in the living room, save for the moonlight flooding in, illuminating a forgotten bouquet that lays uselessly on their coffee table.
Sunflowers suit you, Seokmae.
Sliding the door shut behind him, he moves to melt into the couch cushions. With his head thrown back, he still manages to feel his phone back into his hand. He’d thrown it the second he clicked open his messages, reading the lines and lines he’s been fed over and over again, like an automated message he can’t delete. Just a jumbled mess of ‘I love you I miss you I want you Let me make it up to you I’m sorry I can’t help it I couldn’t get out of it I don’t understand you Tell me what’s wrong—’
‘I’ve changed.’
Matthew wishes he still believed him.
His promises—when he tells Matthew he’ll be there for his birthday dinner, he'd always make time for him. His words—when he whispers sweet nothings into his ear, that there’s no place he’d rather be than in Matthew’s embrace. His touch—when he cups Matthew’s cheeks as he softly wipes the tears running down them. But it was like the sight of bouquet #7 sitting pretty and still just like all the others, had clicked something in his mind.
This endless cycle of hurt, anger, disappointment, sadness, forgiveness.
He had to be the one to end it.
He couldn’t continue to pick up the broken pieces of their mess of a relationship. And while actions spoke louder than words, the venom-laced words Hanbin spat at him last week still lingered heavily in his mind.
Can you stop being an idiot? Why can’t you see that my work is important?
He couldn’t live like this anymore. He’s tired, and he can see how it’s mirrored in his hyung’s once loving and warm eyes that seemed to consistently look unrecognizable to Matthew. He owes it to himself, to the Matthew who just wants to be loved and seen, to the Matthew all those years ago who would’ve given up the stars to be with Hanbin.
And so he wishes again.
The words start to sound like a mantra.
Matthew wishes that this heavy sense of dread and pain in his heart doesn’t leave him permanently scarred.
Because Hanbin was all he’s ever known. Matthew never expected or wanted to start all over again. Especially after all these years, the collection of their happiest memories together that he liked to look back on fondly, his youth being so closely intertwined with Hanbin's own. There was a Hanbin-sized hole in his heart that’s been carved out and fears that he may never fill it.
His breath comes out shaky as he exhales, shutting his increasingly watery eyes. His hands find his face to muffle the broken sob that escapes him.