#onewe.fav

But some nights fell silent, his apartment seemingly abandoned and leaving you alone to your own thoughts. What does he do? Is this his career? Is he in a band? With such a brilliant voice, it was too straightforward to consider the man an official performer. He could be anyone with this as his hobby, but your mind still wanted to imagine him giving these same feelings and chills to an entire crowd and not just you a floor down in your own living space.

Gut feelings, they’re seamless. Unquestionable, your instincts will always know better than your mind or heart; but you still listen to the trio in its entirety. Your mind creates scenarios you wish to play out, your heart beats harder from the imaginary feelings and reimbursing reality, but your gut always knows where you lead you that’s best.

Dark pavement beneath your shoes and a walk at a later hour than usual, it turned into what you had waited for. A small club being smoothed over by his voice, the band at his back giving each other smiles and laughs, and every single person in the crowd shivering with that same giddy emotion.

Yonghoon, the man now with a face on his body and his name on the chalkboard, had been performing for two hours before his eyes surfed over the packed club to find you. Weaseling your way past the man at the door just to peer inside and match with his dark brown eyes. You finally had the chance to see his smile light up the entire building and your heart all at once. Like when you make eye contact with an animal a long ways away and they deem you as not being a threat, keep moving along in their world—you felt comfort from seeing him in his own space.

His eyes shined like light hitting a raven’s feathers, glazed over with tears from the blazing lights over his head. Lips forming words, his voice was louder in your ears than anyone else’s. The use of the microphone at his mouth was almost unnecessary from his blaring pipes, each note capturing your feet in place like wet cement was at your ankles.

It was only when a hefty arm caught your shoulder and twisted around that you remembered you were a person in a body standing in the middle of the opening of the club. “In or out, please.” The guard at the door seemed tired of having to peel people away from the performance, but he only shook his head once at your appalled state.

But your tongue moved faster, eyes blinking in tandem with the thumping bass shaking the floor. “Out.” Every muscle contracting and releasing to pull you from the club, the oxygen around you only slipped back into your lungs as the familiar feeling of your apartment surrounded you.

“What are the odds?” You whispered to yourself, an estranged feeling now in your gut. You finally witnessed the man in his own world, not in the comfort of his home where he could belt out any note without feeling watched, and yet he still sang beautifully. As if the world turned for him like a record on a needle, he had everything in the palm of his hand.

And once again, midnight creeped around the corner. His voice painted a picture above, body cradled on the windowsill staring up at the stars. Completely undisturbed, your voice caught him first.

“Nice to know I’m not the only one listening to this every night.” The honking of horns and chatter of people still on the streets below didn’t cover your voice like you thought it would, Yonghoon standing from his sitting position to peer around.

“You saw me tonight?” His brows were furrowed, but he still wore a smile on his face.

“Only for a little bit of time, but it was enough.”

“Why didn’t you stick around?” Intrigued, he dipped himself back down onto the windowsill and ignored the cold wind of the nightly air brushing against his face.

“Call me selfish, but I prefer hearing you when we’re all alone.” You laughed at yourself silently, the same out-of-body feeling in your chest as when you saw him performing earlier that night. It doesn’t seem to let up around him at all, in fact. “I can hear you clear as day when it’s just the two of us.”

“And yet, it is ironically past midnight.”

“I don’t sleep well these days.” Your sentence was nearly halted by his overlapping sound, a defiant sight creating a delightfully understanding word.

“Ahh—” he chuckled. “A fellow insomniac.”

“That would be the term, yes.” You laughed back, but knew the two of you bonding was already a step above whatever scenario you could have ever created in your own head. Just like all humans, the imaginary person you dream and conceive when you’re away from a person you enjoy is only a concept of them. But Yonghoon was filling in his own shoes, and riddling you astounded.

“So, my new friend—” All surroundings flourished so loud you could hardly make out his voice, but even you knew what he was asking. “—what song would you like to hear next?”

two.

One song turned into two, and two turned into three. Like getting a mixtape of your favorite songs sang by your favorite vocalist, you were in your own form of heaven. Nothing in the world could touch you, not even the things that scare you most. No stress, no worries, all of it covered by Yonghoon’s voice until the sky broke with purple and blue and the sun fought to rise.

“Already dawn.” He smiled, the cracks of the fire escape helping you see his cheeks rise and head shake. “I kept you up all night.”

“I would have been awake anyways. You just gave me company and music all at once.” You hated admitting it, but having him singing for you, directly to you, made each night that you listened to him in silence feel like they were a dream, themselves. As if you hadn’t actually been here, only a cloud in the sky listening to the humans below.

“I don’t suppose you’d still like to stick with me?” He asked, peering down to find your eyes through the same cracks that you gazed up at. His smile was sideways, hair greasy from the humidity of the morning, and clothes from the same stage he had been on that night.

“Depends on if you go shower first.” His laugh is better than his vocals, that’s for sure.

“Same for you?” He questioned through his own cackle. “I’ll come down in forty-five minutes and we’ll go get coffee, yeah?”

“It’s a date.”

And a date, as seen by movies and media, is always chalked up to so many things at once they can make someone dizzy. Walking hand-in-hand or side-by-side, staring at their lips as they talk, someone paying for the entire meal instead of just one, and the oh-so-classic kiss at their front door before parting.

But Yonghoon, swooning and bright-smiled, catered to it all so peacefully. Capturing your hand as you walked together down the sidewalk to the café on the corner, paying for your drink and breakfast, eyeing your mouth as you talked and told him all you could say in a short amount of time that wouldn’t leave him thinking you’re weird for speaking so much, watching you listen attentively to his own words and stories in the mix of yours, and the best part—the kiss.

“I’ve never spent so much time with a stranger.” Admittedly, you laughed along with him in the hopes he’d understand that you hadn’t, either. “But this was thrilling.”

His eyes admired your face with the same glistening twinkle in them as when he performs, palm now against the frame of your door. He was like an embodiment of the word charming, your eyes blinking at him like he’d fade away in a mirage.

“So,” his smile, so cherishing and warm. “What’s next?”

“What does your day consist of? Considering I’ve already taken over an entire night and morning, I’ll admit I'm not ready to part just yet.”

It was the word ‘part’ that brought his pearled teeth to shine between his lips, his back to lean him forward, his face to turn opposite of yours to find your mouth in a deep kiss. Like he was sucking the air from you, you pulled back in an abrupt way that made even him laugh.

“Another try?” You asked, eyes squinting from embarrassment before they relaxed. He didn’t miss a beat, pressing his lips to yours for a second kiss.

Small movement, softness, and a flutter of your heart. The man you had listened to sing into the night’s air, faceless and nameless, had swept you off your feet with his voice and made you find solace so simply. Yonghoon, an obvious enjoyer of life and your shaking limbs in his hold as you both smiled into the kiss, had become someone important to your little world.

“What is the extreme measure here?” You asked with a heaving voice, his eyebrow cocking in wonder.

“Such as me coming into your apartment with you after only knowing you for a little over ten hours now?”

Your smile made him nod, voice small from his warm glare. “Such as exactly that.”

“Why wonder what could be if you can act on it?”

Standing outside of your own apartment with shivers running up your spine from his words, he truly did make you think. You could have said nothing last night, listened to him contently like you did every night he was home—and yet you spoke up. You could have made the conversation small, let it wither away—but you let it continue on. It was a common factor - letting your control slip from your grasp - that gave you the confidence to befriend the stranger in the first place. So why not take control now and play this out for what it is?

“Come right in, then.”

three.

Nightfall, hours of spilling life to one another, and Yonghoon with his chin in his palm and his eyes following your pacing form. Oblivious to the tiredness in your bones, darkening eyes, and slowing pace: normally you’d be crashing from sleeplessness at a time like this. But the adrenaline in your veins couldn’t leave your form with Yonghoon here, so close.

Back and forth, his stories filling your mind and helping you piece the man together. All while yours gave him a better idea of who had been listening. You had gotten more out of today than the month of listening to his voice sing notes of love songs, pain, and happiness all together did—and the lingering feeling in your stomach never subsided.

“What makes you excited?” His question caught you off guard, the few seconds of silence finally letting your mind race with the reality of having him in your safe space as he truly is.

“Hmm?” The sound wasn’t just from your curiosity of what he meant, but what he was expecting the answer to be.

“What do you think about that makes your heart race from the thought alone? Or what do you do that makes your hands shake from the enthusiasm?” He asked questions that left you on the edge of your seat and made his mind seem like a huge puzzle for you to solve. You couldn’t configure what was next, and that’s what differentiated from him in your mind and the man sitting before you now.

“There are so many examples in life that make us giddy.” He began to explain. “Sex, love, romantic acts done to or around us; they make our heart beat faster. Stepping down one step and accidentally slipping down a second is another, but it’s less controlled. Do you enjoy control?” His words seemed nearly perverted, but he had a point. When you section life off as things that can and cannot be controlled, you’re left with two very different sides.

“Control is overrated.” Your response made him sit back, tap his index finger against his chin, and his eyes roll over your frame from head to toe. “If I had any, true, sense of control—we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Valid response.” He nodded, but a pout was worn on his face. “But—” His voice was evident of a lingering question, one that had been missed multiple times all day due to not being the right moment. “—how long have you been listening to me sing from above?”

“A little over a month.”

“And you said no words, just listened?” You nodded at his questions, but your gut only tightened. “I was like your little secret.” The smirk on his lips overtook the pout, his eyes glazed over with a filter of courage and libido. “Is that what makes you excited? The thought of me?”

His palm moved from his chin to his knee in tandem with his other hand, the sweat forming from his own excitement being pressed into the fabric of his jeans.

“If I say yes to any of this—” His face was centered with yours, your pacing form finally moving in his direction after hours of keeping a respectful distance. “—would you consider me a creep?”

“And if I say I knew this entire time that you were listening to me, would you consider me a coward for not calling out to you first?”

The long nights of his vocals filling the air, all other neighbors ignoring the sound and going on with their evenings, but you being the only one to listen. It was stupid of you to think it wasn’t obvious, the sound of your window sliding open when the first note left his throat until the last echoed into the darkness. He had known for weeks, but you were on the same page of keeping your distance.

It takes every human emotion and instinct to hold back from doing something simple, common, and natural. The fight is like war—mentally, emotionally, and physically. He held back just as you did, two strangers enjoying each other’s company in silence.

“I would consider you human.” You spoke up, face feeling the heat of his cheeks as you fell down at his side to stare at him evenly. “All this time, and neither of us did anything.”

“Separate worlds mixing for a mere few hours a night, huh?” He laughed like he was being spoiled by the universe, and you were his muse.

“One last question.” You asked, tilting your head to the side. Yonghoon, casually placing his hand over your knee to rub the pad of his thumb in a circle, hummed in response. “Do we keep learning about each other, or return to the pleasing abyss?”

You meet a stranger. Hear their voice, smell their scent, catch their sight—once or repeatedly. And yet they stay at the front of your brain, the image of them like mental polaroids. Why is it that we fall in love with strangers? Everyone you meet is a stranger until you get to know them, but how can you know you love them if you’ve never met them?

One answer resides, and you didn’t have to question it for a split second—that gut feeling.

“Your call, stranger.”