“we could go and get coffee or something from the convenience store and go sit on the pier. do you want to? we could watch the sun rise again and see the town wake up,” hangyeol mutters, finally finishing as he closes his journal and tucks the pen along the cover, sets his phone on top and looks back to jihan. his hand comes out again, painted fingertips brushing some of his hair back from his forehead, eyebrows slightly furrowing. “have you slept yet? might make sure you get some rest after, then, if you haven’t,” he says, thumb coming to gently brush against the darkness underneath his eyes. they all never really slept enough, schedules switched around to suit owls more than humans.
still. jihan came to him, like somehow he knew that his dreams were calling out to him. he wonders if he heard him saying his name.
knowing someone for virtually as long as he’s been alive comes with a few benefits, and the most important one is getting to know well enough how they sleep and how they wake up. people go so far away when they sleep that it’s important that they come back right, jihan thinks, especially if they’d gone somewhere dark. he’s fallen out of enough trees to know how bad the landing can be without someone to soften it, and if there’s no other reason that his dreams keep returning him to his body afterwards, then maybe it’s to make sure that people back on earth land nicely.
it means that when hangyeol jolts awake, jihan is already nudging the edge of his chair back a little so that hangyeol doesn’t knock his elbows into anything while he sits up. jihan nods at his question, bouncing his chin on his thigh for fun. “mhm, just a few minutes ago. it would be creepy if i was just watching you sleep.” he pauses to think about it. “although i guess no one would say so if that’s really what they were doing.”
he makes a sympathetic little noise when hangyeol tells him he’d been half asleep, and then, when hangyeol begins talking about clouds and rain and remembering, he sits back on folded knees and listens. it’s easy to, when he knows hangyeol’s voice almost as well as his own and when hangyeol’s words can paint pictures as vivid as his hands. jihan’s with him, forming with the clouds in the sky and condensing into rain and then evaporating right back up. he’s with him, becoming rain again, kissing glass and pavement and flower petals, and then waiting for the sun to come out and tell them when to come back up again, like their grandparents calling them back to either of their houses.
if it was another time, he could fall asleep there, trusting the cycle that hangyeol weaves to carry him through. but hangyeol has his hands in his now, and he’s talking about the lines on his palms and fingers, and jihan remembers something he learned a long time ago. “halmeoni told me that our fingerprints,” he wiggles his fingers against hangyeol’s, “are formed when we’re babies and we push our hands against the womb, and our skin’s so soft then that it takes that impression and then remembers it forever. so maybe you’re right. i don’t remember my mother, but there’s this part of me that does, and all of my scars from scratches from times i don’t remember anymore. i wish there was a way to talk to the soul, though. i don’t know what’s good about it remembering all these things if the mind doesn’t.”
he leans his weight back, letting his hands fall back down when hangyeol lets go to turn off all the switches and gather up his journal. jihan likes watching him do that -- it’s always seemed a little magical how hangyeol has threads to possibly every person in town this way, how he could pluck a message down the lines with a simple flick of a switch. he’ll have to ask to see what he’s been working on in his journal later, too. “i do like coffee and the pier,” he says agreeably, tilting his chin up when hangyeol reaches for his face. he knows the shadows he traces there with his thumb; if jihan mirrored the movement, he’d find the same shade of exhaustion beneath hangyeol’s. he always wants to make it go away, but it seems too ingrained in them all by now, and all he feels he can do is make sure it doesn't become too deep. “i could heat up some buns from the freezer too if you haven’t eaten yet and we can have a little breakfast. maybe we can even sleep there.”
before hangyeol can worry too much, he takes his hand and stands up, giving a little tug. since hangyeol isn’t out of his seat yet, it rolls the chair along with him. it makes jihan grin and hold on with his other hand too and tug again. “maybe we’re all clouds,” he says, tilting his head towards the equipment. “maybe we’ve been different people over and over before and we just forget every time, and when we hear the lullaby it’s just our soul trying to remind us. maybe that’s why it tells us to remember. maybe when we do, we’ll remember the language it’s in, too.” he yawns, finally letting up so hangyeol can stand. “did you hear it tonight? did you have any new revelations about it, mr. detective?”
