[EDITING]
When Jeon Jeongguk's sister gets engaged to his friend's brother, almost everything changes.
Desperate to hold onto a fragile friendship, Jeongguk is willing to get himself into sticky situations--even to the point of ruining his sister's...
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Chapter Forty-One: Falling
That night, Jeongguk couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned, adjusted his pillow, his covers, but no matter what, he always felt uncomfortable and stiff. Everything was swirling around in his mind, haphazard, untamed. He couldn't stop thinking about Taehyung. His childhood, family life, his parents and everything he'd had to endure. Taehyung had come back home around dinner, and they had spent the rest of the evening as usual, both acting like nothing had happened that morning, both normal, breezy, enjoying the other's company. But all the while, Jeongguk was turning over the details of Taehyung's childhood in his mind, wondering if he should bring it up, then deciding he wouldn't, because it wouldn't be fair. Taehyung deserved to open up that conversation on his own terms, when he was ready, when he wanted to. But now, he couldn't sleep. There were too many things on his mind. Too many things left unsaid.
He lay back on the bed and sighed. Opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Who was he kidding? He wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon. If at all tonight. He needed to clear his mind.
He pulled off the covers and placed his feet upon the floor. Tiptoeing around his bedroom, he threw on a shirt and shorts and grabbed his camera. He snuck down the stairs, cringing as a floorboard creaked, and then exhaled when he reached the bottom. He hadn't woken anyone up.
The house was eerily quiet, almost like in the mornings, but somehow the silence was deeper, almost tangible; like it was a live thing, the ghost of an animal running through the hallways. He felt like he was the only one in the world.
Softly, he walked through the sunroom and opened the door out to the patio. The night was humid and warmer than usual––they were going through a heatwave. The sounds of the nights emerged like a symphony, crickets chirping rhythmically, the wind rustling through the trees, birds taking flight. The moon was bright in the sky, almost piercingly so, and it cast a dreamy glow over everything. Jeongguk's pictures felt like something out of a fairy-tale. The flowers felt like a shadow of themselves, the colours darker, a soft red turned maroon. He moved across the patio, eyes through the viewfinder, and felt as his mind calmed down, as he snapped shots of the plants and the flowers, the night-sky, noting how everything seemed so different in the dark. How everything seemed frozen in place. He took a photo of the view from the house, the houses of Jeju cramped together like a crowd of people at a concert; and the ocean in the distance was the stage, dark as coal. He took a picture of the moon, which was difficult––the moon wasn't fond of being seen. The pictures of it were blurred, a grey smudge against the dark sky.
Then, a faint light caught his eye. On the patio everything was dark, except for the moon. The lights weren't turned on. But through the foliage he could see a faint light where the pool was. A soft light, not exactly noticeable, but Jeongguk noticed it. When he had his camera to the eye, he noticed everything, especially the light.
