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inspired-by-the-music · 3 years

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For You: Stand By Me

Taglist: @jineunwootrash @angels-from-california @jayjaydawn

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Recommended Reading: For You: 4 O’Clock; these works have separate, independent, but deeply interwoven timelines.

Chapter 15: The Girl Who Woke Me Up

Sehun's POV

It wasn't like Lei to be late, but she was nowhere to be found half an hour into the New Year's party. Although she had been helping her mother set up just a few hours earlier, Lei was not by Manager Kim's side as she made frantic rounds about the room, tiptoeing carefully around Donghae's lingering gaze. Although she and Lucas were nearly inseparable, Lei did not stand by him as he downed another glass of champagne while laughing with Mark Lee at the NCT table.

I was about to send her a concerned text when Taemin said from his side of Jongin, "She is so beautiful."

Like everybody else at the table, I looked toward whoever managed to turn Taemin's voice into a lyrical whisper. It didn't matter that it was none of our business who held Taemin's heart. When somebody loves that openly, everybody wants to watch for a second or two— even me.

My jaw dropped as my eyes settled on her. She was Lei.

Walking beside Baekhyun, Lei held three hearts in the palm of her hand: mine, Baekhyun's, and Taemin's. And I don't even think she knew what she held, what she could destroy with a single touch should she so choose. I think she only felt the weight of my heart because I forced it upon her through forever-kisses at that Christmas Party.

But how— how light, how insignificant might my heart feel compared to that of her ultimate idol? How cold and callous and uncaring might my voice sound compared to his?

How dark, how dull might my love look compared to that of the boy standing next to her? How rough and careless and frozen might my touch feel compared to his when he catches her before she can fall?

My stomach twisted as I fought (and failed) to tear my eyes from the visual of Lei and Baekhyun. They matched so perfectly from head to toe that, had I not known better, had I not believed that she loved me, I would have assumed that she coordinated her outfit with him.

Their dark hair was parted on the left side. Their clothes were crafted from the same sparkling midnight blue material. Their silver masks were a perfect pair that accented their best facial features. Their flowers— their flowers were the worst part. Atop her head, Lei wore a crown of white roses accented by blue baby's breath; she looked like a princess. In the suit pocket over his heart, Baekhyun tucked a white rose; he looked like her prince.

At that moment, I realized that it is much harder to believe in coincidence than it is to believe in fate. At that moment when she was so far out of reach, it was easy to see that Lei and Baekhyun were written in the stars, and I— where was I written?

Suddenly, it was as clear to everyone in the banquet hall as it was to me at the foot of the stairs in Lei's house: they were meant to walk together. Lei and Baekhyun were meant to be viewed as a pair.

As whispers about them, some approving and some disapproving, overtook the party, the tips of my ears burned. My hands formed tight fists under the table. And all I can remember thinking is I have to hide my breaking heart. No, I have to keep it from breaking, at least for now, because it is in her hands. My heart is in her delicate hands, and the jagged shards will make her bleed.

It didn't matter that Baekhyun was standing right there, willing and ready to bandage her. It didn't matter that Taemin could stop the bleeding with a single smile. I didn't want to hurt Lei ever again; I didn't want to scar her anymore. If protecting her meant suffering silently— well— that wasn't anything I hadn't done before.

Quietly, Jongdae whistled. "Who knew that sweet little Princess Lei would grow up to be so pretty?"

Chanyeol laughed loudly as his elbow dug into my ribs. "Someone did, right, Sehun?"

Obviously, I wouldn't have responded to Chanyeol's jest even if I could have found my voice. I wouldn't have known what to say.

Afraid of saying or doing something to shatter the loving image I left with Lei on Christmas, I turned to walk away from the scene that threatened to destroy me. Of course, I wasn't going to hide forever. The plan was to stand some ways away long enough to untangle the knot in my stomach. The plan was to stand aside to remind myself that choices are as significant as fate, and I was Lei's choice. I am Lei’s choice.

The problem, of course, was my promise to stand where she could see me. I won't go far, I told myself. I'll stand right there, right against that wall, and maybe— hopefully— wouldn't it be nice if she comes to me?

That's pathetic, isn't it— the fact that I still dreamed that she would take the first steps? I'm sorry that I wasn't stronger. I'm sorry that I wasn't bolder. Always, always I was aware of my inadequacies. Always, always I daydreamed about filling them with her. At that moment, however, it occurred to me that that was not right; it occurred to me that that is not love. Above all, it occurred to me that I wanted to give Lei the purest love in her life.

And I— I didn’t know how. Nobody ever taught me how.

On my walk, I nearly collided with Taemin. Despite his eagerness to escape the table, he said, "Excuse me, Sehun," through a small smile. The smile wasn't a forced display of manners; it was genuine. I could tell because little wrinkles formed around his eyes.

I had never seen a smile like that before. Although faint, it was not at all sad or indicative of a broken heart even though we were walking away from the same scene: the one we loved beside another. Taemin's smile was joyful, inspired merely by seeing Lei from afar.

I needed to be more like Taemin, I realized as my back pressed against the wall. I needed to learn to love Lei a little more quietly, a little more peacefully, a little more selflessly. Rather than loving her like the careless teenager I had been when we met, rather than relying on her for constant assurance in our relationship that endured storms over a decade, rather than hoping for her to meet me most or all of the way—

I needed to grow up. I needed to find assurance in the steady beating of my own heart. I needed to take the first step for the rest of forever. I would. I will. That’s the promise I made to myself, the promise I made in one of the hearts she held.

I will love you. I won’t love you perfectly. I won’t love you through a smile as gentle as Taemin’s. I won’t love you with an unmistakable, inescapable warmth like Baekhyun. But I will love you in the best way I know. I will love you with every word I say. I will love you with the words I am not yet brave enough to say. I will love you so deeply for the rest of my life that you will never wonder how I feel. You will never wonder who hung the moon and stars in my sky.

While Lei defended herself against Chanyeol’s allegation that she had broken my heart as if she could ever be cruel enough to do such a thing, I wrestled with the best way to express my feelings. A verbal conversation wouldn’t do; she enjoyed debating and pressing my buttons too much. I couldn’t very well write a song; that would require enlisting the help of someone like Chanyeol who had better knowledge of music production, and I didn’t want to share my feelings with him (or anybody else, for that matter).

While Manager Kim captivated the entire room with her heartfelt good-bye’s to Super Junior and Heechul declared that she was resigning from her position as their manager because of her feelings for Donghae, I decided that I could best express myself in writing. Starting from the beginning, I could map out our stars, and there— there I would be written.

There, I could point to myself on a page and say, ‘I belong here too. I love her too. Even if she wakes up tomorrow and chooses one of you, even if my nightmares come true and she outgrows me, once upon a time, she chose me. Once upon a time, she loved me. Once upon a time, we were the best love story ever written, and I— I— I will never forget that I was her first love, so you shouldn’t either.’

That’s what I wrote on the inside cover of the leather-bound notebook containing our story, by the way. That’s the first of my thoughts that Lei read in my handwriting; it made her break into laughing tears. By that, I mean she was gasping through laughter and tears. So I was also gasping through laughter and tears when she set the book on our bed, crawled to me, and cupped my cheeks with her soft, warm hands, whispering onto my lips, “My first love, my endless love, my Sehun— I am so glad the road led to you.”

And I believe her.

When I found Lei standing alone on the terrace where everyone gathered to watch fireworks an hour early at Changmin’s urging, I embraced her. I didn’t think much of the fact that somebody was always watching. I didn’t much care about lingering stares, and I told Lei plainly when she mumbled into my chest, “Someone is going to see, Sehunnie.”

“I love you,” I reminded her in a whisper per her request. My heart melted into a warm golden puddle in my stomach because of the spoken nickname and because she didn’t push me away. She didn’t argue with me as I declared, “I love you so much that I want everyone to see.”

That was a funny thing to say, considering that we were huddled together in the darkest corner where no eyes would have strayed.

I dropped a kiss onto her flower crown because it marked her as a princess— my princess— and it didn’t matter that Baekhyun gave it to her. The affection, I hoped, I prayed, would make me her prince.

“I love you so much,” I muttered against a rose, “that I want everyone to hear.”

That was a funny thing to say, considering that I spoke in the faintest whisper that only she could hear.

Lei giggled as she linked her hands around my waist beneath my jacket. Her laughter was, is, always will be the most beautiful melody in this world. I loved being its conductor. I loved being its audience.

“I’m so happy, Sehun.” She said my name with the brightest smile I had ever seen.

It so closely resembled the smile she gave me all those years ago when she first gave me her name. It was still too big for her face, and it made her look much younger than the scowl she hurled at Chanyeol in the banquet hall. The only difference was that she no longer spoke through a gap in her front teeth; the gap was closed.

After assuring her that I was happy too— far happier than I ever imagined because she stood near— I said, “I miss your gap, Lei. You’re beautiful, and I wouldn’t change a single thing about you, but I really wish I could see your gappy smile one more time.”

“There are plenty of pictures of it.” The tips of her ears burned red at the compliment, and I thought that I had to call her beautiful every day. From the dimple forming in her chin, however, it was evident that she knew the limitations of photographs. “You know, I miss my gap too. I hated it when I had it, but the thing is: I always picture myself with a gap in my front teeth.”

I stared into her wide eyes, finding my lovestruck reflection within them. “I always think of you with stars in your eyes.”

I heard her breath hitch as she held me closer. Breathlessly, she reached for my hand. “I always think of you with my heart on your hand.”

After bringing my frozen, trembling hand up her lips, she left a ruby-red kiss mark where she once left a fingerprint heart. I wanted to carry that mark everywhere with me. I wanted to boast it to everybody, and I promised to learn how to do that. I promised to learn who to tell. I promised to learn what to say to make them understand how much it meant to me— how much it means to me.

I think I have learned. I think I have made you understand. I hope that I have. Please, tell me that I have.

Her gesture rooted in our past, her touch— still electric— made my heart flutter. Her touch, even as my favorite memory, still makes my heart flutter.

Her touch compelled me to say out loud, “I fell in love with you the day you marked your heart on my hand, you know. All at once, I opened my eyes and realized I was on the edge of a cliff, and I—” I choked on my emotions, but I forced myself to continue— “I was so scared that you wouldn’t wait for me at the bottom.”

The wind blew and filled my eyes with tears that I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to become an overtly sentimental person, but every wall I ever built around my emotions tumbled at her touch. I didn’t want to shed a single tear, but Lei brought both hands up to my face, wordlessly promising to catch each tear before they fell.

Lei loved me. She loved me so much from the day we met, and I— I am so grateful. I did not know whether love was meant to be repaid, but I resolved in that moment under her moon and all of her stars to return every loving gaze for the rest of my life.

I held both of her hands against my cheeks because her touch made me brave enough to speak. “You said that I could walk with you anytime. And I just want you to know that I want to walk with you forever. I want you to know that I’m so sorry for—”

For trying to walk away. For breaking her mistletoe crown. For failing to regard her heart as the treasure it had been all along.

But I couldn’t say any of those things she deserved to hear. My throat tightened around my words.

Wiping my tears, Lei promised, “I forgive you. I forgive you, Sehunnie. Everything— everything painful is past, and now we are walking hand-in-hand on a path that doesn’t end.” Her thumbs stroked my cheeks, raising goosebumps in their wake. “Don’t carry things we don’t need, angel. Don’t carry things that will only hurt you. It’s okay.”

Lei pulled me into the sweetest kiss. It lasted for about a millisecond, a blink in time, and I knew that was all we were, but God— God— we felt infinite. I think— no, I know this is love: when somebody makes you, a mere mortal, feel as though time has stopped; when somebody makes you feel as if forever, eternity, and fate were words written for you.

“In case you forgot,” Lei said, “I love you too.” She beamed up at me, so I had to smile even as she winked in an attempt to dig under my skin: “In case you forgot, I loved you first!”

Because I couldn’t argue with the truth, I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Okay. You loved me first, but—” I caught her around the waist and leaned to whisper in her ear— “I’ll love you longer.”

“As if,” she scoffed, pushing me away so I could catch the furrowing of her brow. “How can you even make such a bold claim? I told you, Sehunnie, I’ve loved you forever, and I’ll love you forevermore. What could last longer than forever?”

Feigning deep contemplation, I hummed through puckered lips, hoping that Lei would rise to kiss them. (Note: Lei never disappoints.) “Maybe forever in writing? I think I heard once that a love recorded on paper, in a film, or in a song lives forever.”

“If you’re planning to write about me,” she said, “you should know that I’ve been writing about you too. I’ve been trying to map out or stars since we kissed in your car, but I— I can’t figure out how the stars aligned.” Her head went aslant. “But I also can’t figure out how we could have ended up anywhere else with anybody else.”

It had been made clear to me that any misstep could have led Lei to Baekhyun or Taemin. Maybe she will find her way to them someday no matter what I do, but I gave no voice to those thoughts. Taking a deep breath, I soared at the imagination of Lei writing to pinpoint the correlation between the me of the past, the me of her dreams, and the me of right now. I hoped she was proud to have created a place where we could be together forever, even if someday we should wake up on different paths.

It’s romantic, isn’t it, that we separately experienced the same epiphany concerning our stars?

“Some things are just meant to be,” I figured, sounding unlike the version of myself who struggled to believe in things like destiny, the version I had been for almost all of my life. “You and I— Lei, we are the greatest meant to be I can imagine.”

When I stepped into the warmth of the agency building from the winter snow, I quickly found Lei asleep at that table by the vending machine where we met. Her face was almost completely nuzzled into the bend of her elbow, into the cloud-soft baby blue sleeve of her sweater. Her dark hair sprawled over much of the table; it was so long then, almost reaching her waist. She shouldn’t have been recognizable, but I would have known her anywhere, from any distance.

“Wake up,” I whispered into her ear as I settled into the chair next to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I’m here.”

Once Lei sat upright and set to rubbing her sleep-swollen eyes, it was obvious that we couldn’t go out on an adventurous date. That much should have been obvious, I know, determined by our roles as idols, but I hadn’t shaken that image of her and Baekhyun standing together at the New Year’s party from the front of my mind.

I wasn’t jealous anymore. That initial towering wave of nausea and the drowning sense of inferiority had passed without casting me overboard. It just occurred to me once the storm cleared and the sun broke through the clouds that I wanted to be the person by her side forever; I wanted to stand by her in the light; I wanted it to be obvious to strangers from a glance that we were meant to walk together.

Rising to her feet and slinging her bookbag— the tiny pink Hello Kitty bag she carried since childhood, the bag still donning the keychain I bought for her tenth birthday— Lei groaned, “I’m exhausted! And I didn’t even realize it until I woke up.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” I said as I followed her, “but there are more comfortable places to sleep, you know.”

Lei had worked herself to the point of exhaustion, I know without a doubt, because she made no argument; she loved to argue.

On our walk to the door, I reached for her hand, which was always much smaller than mine. She flinched at the contact probably because my hands were always cold, maybe because she wasn’t yet used to affection, hopefully because my touch was electric.

As shocked as she had been at the start, Lei was the one who interlaced our fingers. Lei was the one who whined when I had to break the contact to open the passenger door and then round to the driver's seat. Lei was the one who reached for my hand as soon as I set it on the steering wheel.

“I just want to feel you.” Her words blurred together drowsily, but her eyes shot open— wide awake— when I glanced at her. “Your hands are so warm, Sehunnie, and it’s so cold outside. I’m freezing!”

After turning the heat up, I said through a budding smile while starting down the familiar path to her house, “Nobody has ever called my hands warm. Then again, nobody ever held my hands before you.”

“And nobody will hold my hands after you,” I almost said. Because I didn’t want to think of a time after her— I didn’t want to think of a time without her— I bit down on my tongue. I left those words unsaid. Unspoken words hold power too.

“Your hand was warm at the drive-in too,” she told me. “Holding your hand made me feel like the moon and stars smiled down at us.”

There was no moon and there were no stars that night, I remembered clearly, but I didn’t remind Lei. Maybe this sounds crazy, but I hope she misremembered a lot about those days before I could love her. In a way, I hoped she romanticized them; I hoped she saw them— I hope she saw the past me— through love-colored lenses. I hoped the stars smiled in all of her memories.

With an almost childlike quality of honesty— the kind that I never wanted to argue with, the kind I only thought I had to argue with— Lei said, “Holding your hand makes me feel like spring has come.”

Butterflies raged in my stomach and told me the perfect thing to say: “That’s funny. Looking at you makes me feel like spring has come.”

I think that might have made her squeal had she not been drifting to sleep. Her head banged against the window every few seconds.

“Lay back,” I tried to demand sternly, but my voice was nothing but a gentle whisper around her after Christmas. “Lei, lean your chair back and go to sleep. You’re gonna bruise your face or give yourself a concussion if you keep hitting your head.”

Without opening her eyes, she argued, “I don’t wanna go to sleep! I wanna stay awake with you!”

She was being rather childish, I thought, but she repeated that sentiment once we sat together on her living room couch, which was no longer tainted by the memory of finding Lucas atop her on her birthday.

“But you’re tired.” Tightening my arms around her waist, I pulled her closer and encouraged her to lean into me, to fall asleep on me. “Just close your eyes, and I’ll go to sleep with you.”

Lei didn’t resist my pull. Her eyelashes tickled the skin on my neck as she laid against me and allowed her eyelids to flutter shut. Without mumbling another word, she fell into that deep heavy-breathing sleep, and I wondered how many nights she had avoided sleep. I wondered how I was supposed to fall asleep with her laying so close. I wondered how I was supposed to close my eyes while my heart pounded in my chest, eager to break free and unite with hers. I wondered how I was supposed to breathe while her breath whispered across my skin.

I was wide awake— I am wide awake— and I never want to sleep again.

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