#jay okja

Scene One

You were on him again. When weren't you?

Calvin just barely made it inside the threshold of the home you shared, feeling your arms gently slipping around his waist from behind as he shut the door, your cheek pressed to his interscapular region as if you were trying to meld your two souls.

With big doe eyes and sweet little pout, you mumble into his back, “You didn't answer my last text…”

“I was walking home,” he replied, voice even and semi-sarcastic. “Didn't think you'd panic in the… five-minute window between texts.”

“I wasn't panicking,” you lied. “Just… checking.”

Calvin huffed and set down his bag, containing a journal full of ideas, a pen for writing it all down, and a laptop for when he gets inspired-- (He doesn't mess with that typewriter anymore). Your arms are still snug around him, as if he might float away if you weren't there to ensure he stays tethered to the laminate flooring. He didn't pull away– not immediately. He just… stood there, letting your weight settle against his tense body.

“You know…” he started dryly, “normal couples greet each other with a wave or… maybe a hello. Not… entrapment.”

“I’m not all that normal…” you mumble into his sweater. “Thought you knew that when you fell for me.”

He replied with a reluctant huff– the closest he ever gets to a laugh off when he's tired. His hand moved– albeit, brief– to pat your arm. It was stiff, awkward, but there.

Look. Calvin had been careful. Once.

With words. Space. Time. Love. Especially love. After… Ruby… love had always been something he approached like a vicious creature in a trap– gentle and cautious, scared it’d bite.

Then you happened– and you were the opposite of careful. Uninhibited. You always wore your heart on your sleeve. You gave affection freely– aggressively, almost– like you hadn't been taught to hold it back. You held his hand in public. You touched his face when you sensed a hint of sadness. You clung to his bicep like a second limb– humming and smiling, burying yourself in his sweaters when the world got too loud.

Calvin? He doesn't always know what to do with you. But over time, something inside him softened– almost imperceptibly.

Scene Two

“Flowers?”

Calvin questioned one morning as he trekked down the floating stairs of his mid century-modern home, hair messy with a confused look on his sleepy face.

You were sitting cross-legged on the couch, a small woven basket before you as you threaded tiny white clovers into a braid along your temple, humming something off-key– cheerful.

“They help,” you reply, without looking up. “With the nerves.”

He cocked a brow.

“Natural anti-anxiety,” you added with a gentle smile.

Calvin didn't understand it. With you, he never quite does. The way you adorned yourself when you felt small, like some gentler version of Midsommar- but he never questions it. Not when it kept you from shaking and panicking when someone bumped into you in the grocery store too hard.

He sat beside you– wordless– and reached out to tuck a daisy deeper into your braid.

You blinked. “What are you doing…?”

“I don't know…” he hummed softly. “Helping?”

After a few moments of silence, Calvin chuckles to himself.

“You're too much sometimes.” He states, as if it's the most obvious fact one could possibly think of. However, it wasn't cruel. It was just so… honest.

“I know,” you hummed quietly.

Calvin paused. You always had a way of deflating him with honesty– the raw, unguarded kind. He expected whining. Protest. But you just… said it. Like a truth you had carried for far too long.

And instead of pulling away, he wrapped his arms around you– tight, this time. Certain.

“You're not too much,” he sighed slowly. “I’m just… still learning how to hold all of it.”

“All of what?”

“You.”

Love, he's realized, doesn't have to arrive fully formed. Sometimes it grew quietly. Unevenly. Like those flowers in your hair, pressed in place by uncertain hands.

He wasn't like you– open, clingy, soft. But… he was learning. Every touch from you was a seed, and even if he didn't know how to water them-- yet, he held them carefully. He tried. And he realized something.

It takes man to live.