Mission Wall-E || Jakehoon

Twenty-four: We're Gonna be Alright

They didn't love each other. Not yet at least. But it's the start of the fall when green leaves of interest start to change into warm tones of reds, oranges, and yellows, when they quiver within the cold and weaken in strength. They haven't fallen down towards the ground, with all the others that have fallen. They stay up, taking note of the shades each is turning under the sun that is slowly chilling as the seasons' change.

They started off in summer, both wore fewer clothes and were covered up with sunblock because the heat around them was too strong for their skin. They used fans to cool down and iced drinks to calm their thirsty throats. Then autumn came, it became slightly chilly and they began to move towards the other leaves surrounding them. Their noses became red not because of the sun's rays, but because the air nipped at the skin that threaten to turn blue if the temperature dropped any further. Now they wait for winter, where they can see every breath that the other let out in a small cloud of fog that leaves their chapped lips. They'll warm their bodies in embraces against piles on the ground, and the cheeks of each other so they don't freeze off. They'll talk and wait for the snow to fall, and reassure each other when it finally does, burying them under its clumps of white, hoping for the sun to come out again and turn them into a bundle of flowers that a boy will pick from the ground and hand to his lover one day.

Everyone talks about the fall, but no one talks about the rise before the fall, because they forget that you had to have gotten to a high place before you stumbled down, hoping your fellow colourful leaf would meet you at the bottom of wherever you were headed. You have to walk up the hill of realizing your nose isn't red because autumn had come and you feel colder now, but because a cute boy with soft black hair watched you carefully and quietly as you slowly swiped a thin red line of paint down an average-sized rock you'd found in a stream. You have to raise up on your toes, not to be able to see that the sun is still rising even though it seems later than usual now, but because he moved to lay down on his stomach and rest his chin on both his hands elevated by his elbows, but also the knee of yours that was up in a criss-cross position. Your heart has to speed up just like it would if you were to be thrown high up in the air, to be able to see how his eyes were wide with fascination as the red paint became gold paint going in a circular motion on the rock.

"Aren't you going to do one?"

"No... I'd rather just watch you for now."

"Are you sure?"

"Mhm."

Some might use leaves falling as a metaphor for a love dying. Which is a good way to go about it. But the way he saw it, the leaves weren't sick or old, they just decided that it was time to leave their tree of comfort and become something else, leaves have to let go of the branches holding them eventually, we just have to hope that the wind will catch them and help them land safety. He isn't quite sure what the wind is in this metaphor. Maybe it's luck or the universe deciding to pat you on the back for all the good work you've done. But he just hopes the wind of an unknown entity will land him gently in the shade with Sunghoon's eyes that followed every tiny movement his hand made.

He's been on many dates before. but he never felt so supported as he did on this one. His tree branch was holding him up firmly and he was facing directly towards the red hues on the leaf, that was Sunghoon's calmness resting on his knee, at the tree perfectly opposite from him.

He hadn't brought up the way he talked to him fifteen minutes ago yet, he could still feel the tension hanging up next to him in the form of icicles. But he knew that it wasn't quite winter yet, so they would either melt or fall soon because it wasn't their time for being there.

The icicles that left the mouth of Sunghoon's did make him shake and not want to leave his tree until next season. He couldn't ignore it, obviously. It made his body stop and his throat tense. It reminded him of all the other times he decided to fall too early, leaving him stuck in the mud, dozens of feet away from where he planned to be. But there was nothing dangerous about Sunghoon. He wasn't just the icicle. Really he was a big leaf with only a few frozen raindrops on him. The raindrops just happen to interfere with his own this time.