#writesvt

>>><<< 

Seokmin is dressed nicely. Too nicely for this bar. His navy dress shirt and slacks are paired with an itch near the nape of his neck. An itch to do something incredibly impulsive and stupid. An itch to do something like steal a car.

And so he does.

It’s just his luck that the car happens to be a Porsche. But when he nearly runs you over, he doesn’t think it’s luck anymore. He thinks it’s something closer to fate. Something closer to mercy.

He only notices the red under your nails and the dried blood on your knees after he’s offered to give you a ride. He decides to ignore it.

“Where to?” he asks nervously over the hum of the radio.

“Anywhere but here.” You answer sticking half your head out the window.

>>><<< 

The interrogator chuckles lightly after reading one line of Seokmin’s file. “Did you notice anything odd about the woman who you picked up on the night of the 25th?”

Seokmin knows his answer, yes. But he doesn’t think it’s for the reasons the interrogator wants to hear.

“no.” he lies. The interrogator seems to believe it.

“Well,” the interrogator continues, his voice turning low as if he’s letting Seokmin in on a private joke, “the hitchhiker you picked up that night is a criminal. Did you know that Mr. Lee? Or am I supposed to believe it was a coincidence?”

“Believe what you want.” Seokmin says dryly.

“I can get you out of here Mr. Lee.” The interrogator leans towards Seokmin. “If you give me some details about the girl, I can get you out.” The interrogator waits for him to say something. Seokmin stays quiet. “Seokmin—can I call you that?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “I heard you’re quite the artist.”

“Where’d you hear that from?”

The interrogator ignores Seokmin’s question. “Just draw her as you remember.” He says sliding a blank sheet of paper and a pencil across the table. “Draw her and I can get you out of here, Seokmin.”

Seokmin takes a long look at the paper before he crumbles it and throws it at the mirror. He hopes the paper hits the mirror close to the faces of someone spectating.

The interrogator shakes his head. “Seokmin,” he utters with such pity it almost works, “I’m on your side. I want what’s best for you.”

Seokmin scoffs. “Isn’t it time for your lunch break or something?”

“It is actually.” He stands up. “While I’m gone, I want you to think about what she would if it was her in this room and not you.” The interrogator leaves without another word.

Seokmin smiles at the realization that they don’t know what you look like.                                                                                                                                        

>>><<< 

He doesn’t tell you it’s a stolen car. He imagines in this scenario ignorance must be bliss. But when he stops for gas after driving for hours to the middle nowhere, he finds you’re not the only who’s been ignorant. More specifically, he finds two duffel bags overflowing with cash in the trunk.

“What did you do? Rob a bank?” you ask breathlessly, staring at the money with wide eyes. Seokmin elects to not let you in on clueless he is.

“And how about you?” he bites back, nodding to the blood still caked under your nails, “did you kill somebody?”

You squint at him for a while. Before reaching down and slipping out one bill from a bundle. You don’t look away from him. Seokmin doesn’t either.

You wave the bill in his face. “I’m gonna get some snacks.” You head towards the shop.

Seokmin grabs some money for himself and follows you inside.

>>><<< 

The interrogator has returned, and he taps one finger on the metal table while the other flips through the pages of the file.

“Mr. Lee, were you aware of what exactly was inside the silver Porsche 911 Turbo S?”

“no.” Seokmin answers honestly.

>>><<< 

“Don’t you have a life to get back to?” Seokmin asks at some point to fill the silence. You had both gotten tired of the radio.

You shake your head, and open the window slightly. “Not really. Do you?”

He doesn’t answer. “Why not?” he prods further. Although if Seokmin were to guess, he wouldn’t say you were particularly interested in this conversation. Not with the way you shuffle your arm through the plastic bag full of mismatched snacks.  

You tear open a bag of skittles. “Life is too messy to get attached.”

“It sounds like you’re just sad.”

“Maybe I am.” You respond. He holds his hand out for a skittle. You drop a couple in his palm. All purple ones, he holds back a sigh. “Doctor says it comes with the seasons.”

He swallows the skittles like they’re pills. “Well, the seasons come and go.”

You tilt your head in thought. And this time when he holds out his hands for more skittles, you give him one of each color.

>>><<< 

“What role did you play in the heist, Mr. Lee?”

“None, sir.”

“Then how did you come into possession of the money?”

“Luck.”

The interrogator hesitates. “You call that luck?”

“Fate then maybe.”

The interrogator looks around the interrogation room, gliding his eyes along every metal surface in the empty room. He raises his one eyes brow, unconvinced.

“Mercy.” Seokmin says as a last attempt.

The interrogator accepts it.

>>><<< 

It goes on like that for longer than Seokmin would like to admit. The days he spent with you on the road in a stolen Porsche almost had him believing that living life was easy. Because with you, it sort of was. You spent the nights in parking lots or in motels if you could find one. You take turns driving. Neither of you have your license.

One day, while you’re driving, Seokmin sticks half his body out of the sunroof. You don’t say anything about it even though it’s raining. Even though you’re getting wet from it. Instead you roll down your window. Seokmin can see your arm stick out from his view above the car. Your fingers stretch out wide as if you’re trying to capture the wind in your palm. Seokmin smiles at the grey clouds. He screams—

are we alive, then he whispers, “or are we dreaming.”

He can hear you humming the song in the driver’s seat.

>>><<< 

“Seokmin, I believe you’re innocent.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Well in that case,” Seokmin retaliates, raising his cuffed hands, “how soon can I get out of these?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Mr. Lee.”

Seokmin sighs.

“Why’d you steal the car?” The interrogator probes. And for a second, Seokmin thinks he sounds genuinely curious. Seokmin’s almost sad he can’t give the man a real answer.

Seokmin settles for a shrug. The interrogator sighs.

“Listen, Seokmin. You’re smart. I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now, but we aren’t all that interested in you. We, not just me, but we believe you’re innocent. We know that you just got caught up in all this. Wrong place wrong time type beat.” He pauses for a moment. “It’s the girl we want Seokmin. Tell us what you can about the girl and you can go free.”

Seokmin hesitates. “What’s the catch?”

The interrogator is quick to respond. “No catch. You walk free. Seriously.”

“Sounds hard to believe.”

>>><<< 

Everything changes the day you watch the news.

“So you are a robber.” You say to him as he exits from the bathroom. You’re seated with your knees up to your chest at the foot of the motel bed. He can see the reflection of the TV in your eyes. He reads something about a multi-million-dollar robbery from the safe of a government official. He reads something about a getaway car having half the cash. He reads something about a Porsche. He reads something about it being last seen at the bar he went to. He reads the realization settle in your eyes. Although he’s not sure what you expected.

Everything changes the night Seokmin comes clean.

Because the night he comes clean, is the night you do too.

>>><<< 

“Do you know what she did, Mr. Lee? Do you know what crime she committed?”

Seokmin bites his lip, forcing silence.

“She killed the Minister.” The interrogator lets it sink in. “She committed cold-blooded murder with her bare hands. Then let you take her across district lines. Keeping you in the dark.”

Seokmin cracks his neck.

“Mr. Lee at any point during your time together were you made aware that you were travelling with a foreignly trained assassin?”

Seokmin laughs, and the interrogator slams his fist against the table. It makes the one-way mirror shake.

“She had you believe she was innocent, Seokmin. She had you believe that you were the criminal.” He all but screams.

Seokmin meets the interrogator’s eyes steadily. “Is that supposed to make me angry or something?”

>>><<< 

“You don’t have to stay.” He tells you as you get ready to leave the motel the next morning.

“Yeah, I know,” you mutter, pushing your hair behind your shoulder, “but what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t.”

Seokmin can’t tell if the word friend makes his heart leap or sink.

Somehow, it’s easy to be on the run. The car isn’t recognized. Maybe people watch the news even less than he thought.

You stay at motels less. Seokmin doesn’t mind. He gets to watch you nod off while he drives. He gets to watch the bullets you send into the sky.

Close your eyes, you say pointing to a star in the sky, make a wish.

His wish comes true when you press your lips to his one night. It’s not gentle or soft. Your lips don’t fit together perfectly. There is no sign that you and him are etched in the stars. Instead It's a mess of lips and limbs. Tugging of hair and of the hem of his shirt. A mix of open-mouthed kisses and fast paced hearts. And somewhere between the mess of it all Seokmin thinks he says I love you and is surprised to find that the voice doesn't sound like his but of someone else’s entirely.

He regrets the words the moment they slip out. He wants to yank them back from the air they pollute but the letters are already out of his reach. He doesn’t mean it. He realizes a second too late that he only loves you in the moment.

And somehow, in the next kiss you give him you express that you understand. And that in this moment, you love him too.

Thinking back to that time, it’s all a blur painted across white clouds and blue skies. One. Two. Three bold strokes. Then a fourth made by a paintbrush dipped in memory, and a fifth stroke made by a shade that encompasses you. Seokmin thinks life is kind of like that. Messy and blurry. A painting without meaning. A car with no destination. A movie shot in vertigo.

But being on the run doesn’t stay easy for long.

>>><<< 

“Mr. Lee, did you know she’d run?”

“How do you mean?”

“When you got caught, Seokmin, did you know she’d run? Did you know she’d let them take you away as long as it meant she got to escape?”

Seokmin can’t help the way the words sting.

>>><<< 

“What happens if we get caught?” Seokmin whispers into the curve of your body one night.

“What about it?” You ask back, pulling at the ends of his hair.

“Will you run?”

You grab his hand, entwining it with yours before you bring it against your lips.

“Ride or die,” you press into the back of his hand.

Seokmin whispers it back, ride or die.

>>><<< 

“It’s almost time to call it a day, Seokmin. Anything else you can tell me?” The interrogator tries one last time. “About the girl? About the murder? About the money? Anything?”

Seokmin shakes his head.

“Maybe, you’re not as smart as I thought.” He tells Seokmin honestly. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Lee.”

>>><<< 

You do get caught, eventually. Seokmin isn’t really sure when it happens exactly, but it does. By the time he hears the siren chasing after the dirt covered Porsche, the days and nights and afternoons and evenings have already bled together. By the time he hears the chopper from above, you already look like you’re ready to be someplace else. Like you’re bored. Like you’ve been holding on to the Porsche and the boy inside for a little too long, like you’re ready to let go.

When the time comes, Seokmin doesn’t have anything left in him to run. He lets himself get caught. And while the handcuffs close around his wrists, he watches you run into the horizon. He watches as you disappear into the setting sun.

>>><<< 

The next day comes, and Seokmin is taken back to the interrogation room. He waits for the interrogator to enter.

The lock on the door unclicks eventually, and the interrogator walks in.

“Mr. interrogator. How I missed you?”

“Mr. Lee, the interrogator you had yesterday is unable to return today. I will be asking you some questions instead. Is that alright with you?”

Seokmin’s mouth drops. He can’t nod. He can’t say anything. He can’t do anything but slowly comprehend the fact that you are standing in front of him. Seokmin thinks for a moment that it might be his own imagination.

But then you sit down and slide a paper towards him. “What can you tell me about this?”

He doesn’t take his eyes off you. You try again. “Trust me, Mr. Lee. You’re gonna want to see what’s on this paper.”

And with the words trust me echoing in his mind, he does.

On the paper, he reads something about I’m sorry. Something about don’t react, they’re watching. And something else about not with them. Then lastly something about I’m on your side, trust me.  

And at the bottom of the paper in your nearly indecipherable writing, he makes out—

I’m going to get you out of here. I promise. ride or die.

Seokmin looks back up at you.

“So, what can you tell me?” You ask again, voice hard and cold. But Seokmin can see the smile peeking out from behind your tightly sealed lips.

“I’m sorry,” Seokmin says to you, carefully void of any emotion, “I can’t see what’s on the paper. It’s all blurry.”

You nod intently. “Could be vertigo.”

1. denial

You sit on the edge of your made bed. You hope that if you sit still enough, time will pass you by. So you sit. Still. Hands folded. On the edge of your made bed. And suddenly the clock strikes midnight. And you’re still alone. You’re still sitting. Except now, your eyes feel dry and dead. Your limbs are closer to lead than flesh. And the memories of his venom seeps back into the vines of your mind.

but why?

Maybe because you loved coffee so damn much

It just hadn’t occurred to you that coffee, while being a mix of cream and sugar,

Was also a drug.

2. anger

Perhaps that night would’ve been very different if it hadn’t been for the way he hummed in your ear, that song you liked to hear. Perhaps if the moon hadn’t been so bright. Or if your chest wasn’t so tight. If the feeling of your head resting on his bare body hadn’t felt so right. Perhaps the night wouldn’t have ended with a shot to the leg and a stab to the arm. Excruciatingly painful, but not deadly. Or so you thought. Like you said, if it hadn’t been for a number of beautiful thoughts in the midst of the blue night at the horribly wrong time, maybe everything would’ve turned out alright.

But instead he cut the song you liked to hear short leaving you in a silence that felt more like sleep. And instead the night turned into a sort of hushed calamity when he clawed your fluttering eyes open with a familiar ‘I love you’ and an uncertain ‘we should get married’

But somewhere between the white sheets and fluffed pillows, somewhere between the lines of his voice you heard him bang at your heart with what that sounded like ‘I want a kid’

But the part where the night turned to shit laid in the fact that you didn’t

That night he tasted like a perfectly brewed cup of coffee

Yet when he slammed the door to your apartment shut, he reminded you that even the best coffee always tasted a little bitter

So he left you with a stab wound to the arm

But you couldn’t see the gun you were holding to his heart.

3. bargaining

And later that night, in the safety of your arms and in the blanket of the dark. He let tears fall from the depths of his eyes. You wished your kisses could calm his worries. You wished your love could stop his tears. You found yourself begging to some entity. They say messing with god is risky. But messing with the devil is pure insanity. You thought consoling the boy in front of you was worth any price. And with each cry that left his mouth, it seemed that a part of your heart came loose with the sound.

You heard the truth sink into his shaky voice, and reality hit the ends of his nerves

And because you knew how hard he worked and how much he cared

It hurt more when he said,

“Seokmin really called off the wedding.”  

Every cup of coffee came with a crash

That night must’ve been his.

4. depression

The first time you realized you loved him was when he took you back to that dumb field, despite you both hating it.

Except that he didn’t take you there for fun, but rather to plan Seokmin’s wedding.

And it was only when his brows furrowed at his notepad and when he muttered a frustrated ‘this is impossible,’ did you realize that the warm feeling pooling at the pit of your stomach whenever he was even in your presence could only be described as love.

But to you, the warm feeling was better defined by the arch of his cheeks and the dip in his shoulder. By the lines in his palms, that you absentmindedly traced when the stars threatened to hide behind the sun. By the tattoo on his neck. By the way his lips traced the outline of your body creating art that made you feel better than you were. By the way his eyes looked behind the circle frames he wore. By the way he whispered your name. By the way he remembered how you liked your coffee. By the way you found yourself craving him instead of your usual dose of caffeine.

So when he started whining about the flower arrangements and types of music, you just smiled at him and between his frustration you told him you loved him. And suddenly, to him, the flower arrangments seemed so simple. Later that night, when moonlight and lust danced in the ocean of his eyes, he said it back. And to you, it sounded like more of promise than a declaration

You just didn’t know of what.

He mumbled against your ear in a later night

That it was a promise of him

He hadn’t noticed that you never promised yourself back.

5. acceptance

You forgot to breathe when you see the boy you met at Seokmin’s party sitting at a desk in your office. He wore a white sweater and circle glasses, reminding you of a caramel latte, too sweet for its own good. He asked for your name, and when he whispered it back, he liked the way the word sounded, falling from the edge of his mouth. Seokmin returned then, stuttering something about tasting cakes for the wedding and offering you and Jeonghan to go to lunch together instead. You were about to say no before Jeonghan took your hand in his and lead you out the door.

You found you couldn’t help but smile,

He found he wanted to kiss the smile from your face.

He decided to ignore that thought for now.

You assumed the shiver that ran down your spine had something to do with the draft in the cafe,

But when he whispered your name again, you were proved wrong.

The knots in your stomach had everything to do with the beautiful boy in front of you.

0. moving on

You met him at Seokmin’s party in the field full of flowers and weeds. He reminded you of coffee. Dark and bitter yet warm and comforting. A tattoo of a flower on his neck peeked from the silk purple shirt that hung off his bones. You bonded over your shared dislike of having a party in the middle of a field.

He said his name was Jeonghan. You never told him yours.