it feels surreal to be walking next to sky in the dark. like i'm pulling all the planets behind me but they're not crushing me, they're lifting me up.

i swear our feet hover an inch above the ground. i want to shout and jump and talk and fly but taehyungtaehyung taehyung is quiet. he keeps walking behind me and i keep slowing my pace so i'm beside him, an awkward dance between boundaries and lines that i wish would cease.

finally, after i think that the night stole the sun and taehyung's voice, he speaks.

"thank you." nothing more than a whisper, another layer of the mellifluous wind. but my feet lift higher above the ground. his deep voice echoes in my head, until the words are bouncing around and have no meaning but they mean everything.

"i'm sorry," i say. and he doesn't refuse my apology. he allows me to walk beside him.

he hugs himself and looks down as he walks, like he's unsure of where his feet will land. he still seems magical even without the rain. it still seems like his feet could transport him anywhere he pleased. and yet he stays here with me.

"no," he says, with so much conviction that i see him. i see him as taehyung, not sky, i see him as lost and upset and small, just like the rest of us. "i mean it." he says it on an exhale, like he doesn't know when to breathe and his words are just falling from his mouth unbidden and i get it.

"you saved me," he admits, voice small, but it splits the night, and i can see light in that rift. i saved him.

(The Boy Who Wore the Aurora Borealis on His Skin)

"and i'm scared." he sniffles, a pathetic sound that closes the rift and crashes us to the earth. i hadn't realized that we were flying in the stratosphere, and i stumble at the impact. his hand shoots out as if to steady me, but he stops before he touches me.

"i'll help you," i say. "i promise."

he closes off, retreating away, and my skin feels cold in his absence.

"where are we going?"

i wish he would talk louder. it makes me feel like i'm shouting, like i'm in elementary school again, unable to understand why teachers took me aside and warned me about my volume level when i was just as quiet as everyone else.

"to my apartment, for now. if you don't mind."

"i don't have anywhere else to go," he says. his voice sounds like the blackest of black with little flecks of silver. like the sky. like him.

"why?" i ask, my voice finally as soft as his, as soft as the air against our skin, as soft as newly-fledged promise.

"because i'm scared," he repeats.

"you don't need to be," i say. the warm night holds its breath, and i do too, before exhaling all the good i can find inside myself and sending it to him. "i'm here."

and because i was staring at him anyway, i catch the small smile he throws at me, pure in the way that suggests i wasn't supposed to see it - no lies or unsurety.

just a heartbreakingly fragile relief.

~~~

when we reach my street, it starts to drizzle. i've already apologized too much for making him walk, but each time, he just brushed it off gracefully. i noticed that when it started to rain, his hunched shoulders relaxed.

i let us in to my apartment, and he stands in the middle of the living room. i think the entire building is going to explode because i, jeon jeongguk, have the sky inside my living room. i keep blinking when i look at him.

"i'll be right back, please sit down," i say, before dashing to my room. i grab all my blankets and pillows and run back, about to offer them to him before i notice that his back is to me and he's looking at the pictures of my family and i next to the tv. something about his posture, thin shoulders winging forward and his tangled locks spilling to the side as he tilts his head, makes me stop dead. he reaches out his hand and picks up a frame, holding it closer to his face.

it's so quiet.

i notice that his shoulders are shaking and when he sets down the frame, his hands are, too. he lowers his arms to his side and just stares, and for some reason, i see more emotion in the sharp, brittle lines of his back and neck than i have ever been able to see in anyone's face. it's like he's gathered up the entire universe and wrapped it around himself like a blanket, and i'm gasping for air in his wake but it's so beautiful that i can't look away and i don't care that i can't breathe, either.

he looks consumed by a wistful sadness. swept away on a tide, tossing under and between the salty, indigo spray of waves and i think he's drowning.

"hey," i say softly.

maybe i can be his life preserver.

he flinches at my voice and drops his head before turning, like he's done something bad. he hasn't. i'm confused.

he won't meet my gaze.

why blame someone for something they can't control?

"i have blankets." that same gentle tone, like he's a frightened wild animal. he still doesn't make eye contact, but he smiles a little, lips wavering like an unspoken question.

i put pillows at the head of the couch and lay the blankets down, then sit. he stands, floored to his one spot in the center of my living room.

i pat the blankets next to me. his shoulders twitch, and i realize that he hasn't taken off his shoes.

"make yourself at home. it's safe here," i say. for a second, he doesn't move.

then he slowly takes off his shoes and sits beside me.

an hour passes before he edges closer to me. we're each wrapped in blankets now, a single lamp burning low near the window, the inky blackness of the night creating a second image of an orange spark.

i turned on the tv after it became apparent he wasn't going to tell me anything. i keep glancing over at him.

i made him hot chocolate, and he clutches the cup near his face, the blankets wrapped around him bunched under his chin. his hair is messy and he watches the tv with a strange kind of detached fascination.

and the way he sits.

almost relaxed, but poised to move – no, to flee.

after our movie ends, silence fills the room once more.

"are you tired?"

he nods. i want him to speak.

"do you want to go to sleep?"

he shakes his head adamantly. finally makes eye contact with me, his irises tortured and fractured and his pain is so loud that it steals my breath and throws the furniture across the room.

"c-can we go on the balcony?"

when we step out, the air is misty, droplets hanging suspended and ghosting our faces. the atmosphere is thick but it feels sharp all the same.

and it smells like the rain from earlier.

taehyung's eyes go straight to the easel standing haphazardly in the corner. the canvas holds an unfinished scene of a misty forest at twilight and i blush.

"you paint," he says, voice full of quiet wonder. i want to tell him about all the times i'd nearly painted him, how the lines of our bodies blurred the closer we were on the canvas. i want to tell him how i always mentally paint him when i'm bored and how i can debate for hours on the perfect material to capture his hair and lips.

but he's already looking up at the stars, letting the mist caress his face.

but when he looks back at me, i see tears through the beads of moisture. i realize that i am internally chanting please talk please talk please talk.

and like he can hear me, he does.

"i have nowhere to go," he starts off with. his fingers trace the marks on his face, the marks that i have grown accustomed to. "he's in jail, but what if i'm not safe?" he falls silent. his hand reaches out to trace the stars instead of the reminders on his skin.

"we used to be in love, once. he was sweet. he loved me and doted on me and then it all– it all changed. he became angry, drunk, or both. then he started to hit me." taehyung breaks off, a jagged breath obstructing the words attempting to pour forth.

his voice wasn't made for such heartbreak, for such anguish.

as if the sky can sense this, it opens up again, pelting us with rain.

and taehyung opens up his arms and embraces it.