lowtide

it takes a moment for the fog to clear. 

but then she straightens in her seat – all narrow shoulders and clearer eyes – and haru knows. there will be no cavalry standing between them tonight. there is only this breath of space that separates them; so close that his knee could brush against hers if he turned just right.

he can smell her perfume, from where he sits. her gaze drops to his mouth. 

the air crackles with electricity, still. 

“nabi…” he repeats, voice quiet. haru wonders if she’s seen the butterfly he carries with him, yet. wonders if she doesn’t believe in fate also. he licks his lips again. wine clings to the backs of his teeth but it’s more for show, really. haru makes sure she’s still watching. he takes another slow sip. “is there a story behind that?”

she shifts in her stool. haru shifts with her. when his knee knocks against hers, he doesn’t move away. 

i don’t have a boyfriend, she says. how could you do this to me? the memory rings clear in his ears. good. haru doesn’t blame her.

“i was actually planning on meeting a friend here…” haru replies with measured nonchalance when she begins to busy herself with her drink. the wine is sweet in his mouth. he studies the shape of hers, now, as he waits for her eyes to meet his again, voice distracted when he finally continues. “…but i don’t want to meet them anymore. i’d rather talk to you. nabi. if that’s alright with you.”

she can hardly recognize her own voice slipping in and out of a daze. too focused on hearing the way his breath carries his words. she doesn't have to look to know his eyes are on the slope of her nose, the curl of her lips. to feel them drawing across the skin of her cheek, invisible trails that stir the subtle burn underneath.

she decides, as she takes another swig, that she'll blame it on the alcohol. she always does.

"could be. that's a story for another day." she shrugs, wishing every tail-end of her sentence wouldn't reveal the flustered stammer of her heartbeat. she purses her lips again, as if holding the very thin layer of determination she's got left in between. eyes dark and heady with a slight whiskey haze as she finally cocks her head. props a heated cheek in one palm and drags her gaze across his lips. it's a while before she can tear it away to meet his eyes again.

"that's alright with me. as long as your friend won't mind." now, she's fighting it. the smile that threatens to splay across her lips, resolve whittled down to a mere particle of dust as a clumsy laugh leaves her instead. stunned. confused. eyes blown wide as though fate has just clocked her upside the head.

me? she asks out loud, eyes searching his. 

you. his smile, haru hopes, is answer enough. he holds her gaze. patient. watches hers drop to his mouth for the briefest moment. as if it could be anyone else here.

her reply comes as an invitation and he hopes (he knows –) he’s read the room correctly. 

sliding onto the bar stool beside her, he shifts out of his coat. wonders if she’s tracking his motions as he’s tracking hers. there is electricity under his skin, crackling in the room, illuminating this space between them.  

haru orders a glass of wine. he tries not to stare at her mouth.

“do you normally come to drink alone?” there’s a teasing lilt to his voice. casual. easy. harmless. out of the corner of his eye, he can see her hands, small and pale, curled around her whiskey glass. he only allows himself to turn towards her after his own drink has arrived. “your boyfriend doesn’t mind it?”

(nabi, you came! the voice had said. why can’t you just support my art? the voice had demanded in the stairwell.)

haru’s question is a thinly-veiled opportunity. a chance for her to slip through. a chance for her to put up walls, a fence, a fucking cavalry – between haru and herself. boundaries. he knows she will understand. most of the girls he asks this to do. 

he takes a long sip of his wine.

“my name is haru,” he offers a moment later. his bottom lip is wet with wine and he intentionally lets it linger. licks his lips when he knows her eyes are on him. the room is electric, still. haru wonders if the eye contact bothers her. wonders what she will think. wonders at how terribly wrong his memory had been – at how little justice it had done – because she is more beautiful, up close, like this, than she had been in any of his faded memories. nabi! “…am i allowed to ask for your name, too?”

he moves with practiced ease as he slides onto the stool, his eyes slipping from her gaze. tension lines the thinning of her lips, following the curve of her shoulders. then down to the fingertips that press gingerly into the outside of her glass. she thinks of dohyun and their blurred lines — a momentary lapse into confusion until she realizes that she owes him absolutely fucking nothing.

she sits up a little straighter then, clears her throat and allows the teasing pull of his voice draw a careful smile across her lips. tension melts into a subtle buzz of something else. rivulets of electricity cast across the distance between them every time she catches his eye.

"no, not normally." she begins quietly, wet fingertips fiddling idly with the corner of her napkin. when her gaze flutters from his glass to the wine-stained edge of his lower lip, she draws the color across her mind. cherry and streaks of deep burgundy. but nothing compares to the way his eyes dip behind curtains of dark chestnut brown every time he smiles.

"nabi... it's nabi." electricity pulls at her skin and she catches herself just as she starts to lean over, hips shifting from midline over to the edge of her stool. quickly, she looks away, bringing her glass up to her lips before she echoes after him, feels the way his name rolls off her own tongue. whiskey coats over the temptation and she subdues the rest of it with a little laugh. "i don't have a boyfriend, by the way."

( “what are we then?” ) nothing. nothing anymore.