radiance | baekhyun

31

//

roma had never felt heartbreak before. not like this, anyway. she felt pathetic for even thinking something like that, but she couldn't come up with any other way of describing it. this weird void which nothing could fill.

this void of sitting all day and doing nothing. this void of other people's laughter and happiness not being able to mirror onto her own.

she sat, for the next few days, inside, feeling stupid for dropping everything and going with him. escaping reality and leaving her life. she'd forgotten all about work, and studying, and she felt even worse for just abandoning mia. not that mia needed her particularly, but she shouldn't have just left without saying anything.

but mia--whom roma was extremely grateful for--hadn't seemed to mind her sudden departure. she'd spent the night that roma came back making endless cups of tea and putting on fun films and doing whatever she could think of to cheer roma up. which roma really appreciated.

it didn't work, though.

mia told her that she knew boys, what they were like. she'd said what a waste of time they were, and how they were only good for one thing. boys, in general. roma had just grinned weakly, the stale tears still dry along the rims of her eyes.

and roma didn't want to doubt mia's knowledgable comments, or her constant reassuring smiles, but mia's need to have a boy, any boy, in her life, suggested that mia was promising empty assurances just to make roma feel a bit better.

none of what she was saying would apply to baekhyun, anyway. he wasn't--(she paused)--hadn't been just one of her boyfriends. so much more than that. her heart ached, weighed her sorry self down.

as she sat on her bed, surrounded by papers and books and messy thoughts, the glorious afternoon sun setting across her bed sheets, she was reminded of the small, left-over marks that littered her pale skin. one particular bruise sat at the crook of her neck, a burning remnant of baekhyun's lips.

don't cry.

every time she thought of him, this sickening feeling knotted in her stomach. like the happiest memories she'd had were now gone. glazed streets and dark coffee and cigarette smoke; all replaced with an emptiness that left her hollow on the inside. couldn't breathe.

roma played with the pendant slung around her neck, between her fingers.

when it was night, late, and she was still up, reading, her eyes would be drawn to where the light in her small lamp was flickering, the burning lessening. they'd be drawn to where the tv screen was buzzing, the image distorted, and her heart would beat hard and heavy in her chest, because she knew what it was.

she'd almost feel it, too, the electricity running through her veins. the image of the two of them standing, towering, above the darkened city would flood her mind, watching as the storm broke out across the massive sky.

lighting and fire and thunder and light.

i miss you.

//

20:23.

one evening, mia had stuck her head around the corner of their bedroom, observing roma with a strange smirk plastered across her lips.