metal heart

“you’ve been watching me.” comes her voice, flat and steady. a perfectly reasonable way to open the floor for conversation, she assumes. and just for effect, she musters the best imitation of a dramatic lead from various kinds of media she’s dissected for research purposes. “do you like what you see?”

to desire is simple. to be sated is simpler. it doesn't take much for men to be pleased—an indisputable truth since time immemorial. take the first guy and his cave, the thousandth and his tent, and the billionth and his getaway luxury camper; the common, unifying factor being the unwavering presence of flame.

eunho should be no different: throat warmed from the gulp of booze, face lit alive as he stands fireside. small creature comforts that should be more than enough.

except he's wired with the worst, ill-timed impulses. content until he isn't, at ease until ease slips out right under his feet.

all because of those damn cartier earrings.

a turn of the girl's head, and they swing delicately, the line of diamonds strung together by a thin braid of silver. inebriation is five drinks ahead, better senses still intact. he looks away quick enough. or so he thinks.

the shadow in his periphery is new, the voice newer. he stiffens at the sudden proximity, moving back where she moves forward.

surely, she doesn't know. surely, she couldn't tell—

do you like what you see?

she returned her gaze to the group. "does that work for everyone?"

the air stills. 

there's too much of it, he thinks faintly—rushing to his head, spilling through the earth, soaking the sky. far too much for a crawling, starved thing to leave it alone. he knows because she knows, feels it because she feels it. 

inhaling deep, he grounds himself in the balmy scent drifting through the pines, counts to three. exhales clean through his nose. 

the moon looms behind them like a bad omen. eunho has yet to dare look it in the eye. instead, he trains his gaze to spot a clearing through the trees—marks a straight shot right through the dense hang of the canopy. 

better to be quick than die slow. better yet, to move now. 

She sighs and frowns, the man is long gone but the vision of his future swims past her all the same. It’s noting too dramatic, his wife will take the kid and leave, his friend will try and beat him up, he and the lover will take up and move elsewhere onto a new life. “I feel sorry for the kid though,” she says finally, “I don’t know that he’ll ever see his dad again.”

this should exhaust him by now. 

the hours pass as if they will never run out⎯languidly tracing figure eights over the cobbled paths, by the winding line of street lamps, along the gentle rippling of the meadow grass. it's the easing ways of small folk: to move with the certainty that the next day will always come. 

it's odd, to feel so removed from it all and as if he's right where he belongs. the coffee in his cup comes tasting burnt with no elation for the weekend; the sight of the usual characters play into their roles as if this was all they were made for. whatever surprises that come along arrive trite and contained.

for instance: the man with his not-so-secretive grin. 

eunjae speaks of his not-so-distant misfortune. over the rim of his mug, eunho's gaze hooks onto his not-so-valuable seiko watch as it glints against the warning glare of the sun, then lets go. 

he's never been one to fall for easy bait, anyway.

( there's comfort in knowing this continues to ring true. )

frankly, even he wasn't sure how this was supposed to pan out.

to make it absolutely clear, there were no rose colored glasses involved in the bigger picture. no visions of sparks flying, a serenade of violins materializing out of thin air, or the abrupt ding-ding-dings! like he'd gotten the winning ticket for the lotto.

ever a man of subtlety, the most he'd waited for was a small shift. a gentle, unimposing sense of clarity—like the first sunbeam over the horizon, the light lifting of morning dew. not a tall order by any means, if any cosmic entity of the universe is truly out there listening to anyone.

and eunho couldn't have been more convinced of its existence. because the very instant it had happened, he'd known before the full weight of recognition could knock the wind out of him. all it'd taken was one look. just one!

fate, generous as she is, had tossed him that singular, grisly bone at last.

it had gone spectacularly downhill from there.

the initial loss for words? a given, surely, because it's a delicate matter that requires processing. any and all sudden life changes require such pause.

but reality had wildly subverted expectations in ways he couldn't have fathomed. the blanched expression, for one, as she stared down at his beady bird eyes; the vividly abject horror, for another. the soured cherry to top it all off: the leather handbag that came swinging right at him after.