Love Story

i still need you here

Author : silverkatana
Original publish on : archieve of our own | 2019
Author notes : first fic of 2019! hope you enjoyed

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The autumn that comes colors the city in swirling shades of red-orange and gold, and the grey sidewalks are filled with the daily hurried whirlwind of people in long beige coats and lowered heads scrolling through websites on their hand phones while making their ways here and there. It is a beautiful sight, really, accompanied by more pleasant weather compared to the blazing hot plague of summer, yet as he gazes out of the window and rests his gaze upon the familiar scene his heart goes heavy in his chest.

Autumn is a beautiful season, one of Jungsoo's favorites - the cooler breezes upon his skin nearing the winter months and the fluttering of green-turned-orange leaves to the ground like a gentle descending dance has its special way of bringing out all the nostalgia and pensiveness that he's somehow kept pent up within him most of the time; it's perfect for taking a step back from his otherwise busy schedule and reveling in the peaceful silence, paired with a cup of warm coffee or two.

Jungsoo lets a sigh escape his lips as he raises the white porcelain cup to his mouth to sip at his coffee; as much as he appreciates autumn, it also has a knack of bringing up all the memories he's tried to kept hidden away in the furthest corner of his subconscious in hopes of forgetting they ever existed.

After all, he reflects with a bitter smile playing upon his features as he allows his eyes to stray just a little to the framed picture sitting at the edge of his table that he hasn't quite gotten around to throwing out yet, autumn was the same month that he met Heechul.

He supposes that in the end, it would be impossible to erase all the traces that Heechul has left imprinted in his memory. It's difficult to get rid of something that affected you so much that it became an integral part of you at some point - it's hard to simply forget someone who you loved with all your heart, soul, and more - it's impossible to dismiss him as a shooting star when at some point he was an entire galaxy across the sky.

He remembers all of it clearly, so clearly, more clearly than what he remembers of the morning's breakfast or what clothes he wore the day before. From the day that they first met, wearing those long autumn coats (he was in a pale beige, Heechul wore bright red), to the days that they spent together, drinking coffee in hidden-away side shops (Heechul liked his with milk, he didn't, not that much), to the days they began to stray apart, coming home to empty greetings and barely-there smiles (he never knew how different "hello's" could sound when they weren't genuine), to the days that the pieces all fell apart and they couldn't pick it back up anymore, watching in a dazed standstill as Heechul slipped his hand into a girl's and tangled his fingers in her silk-like hair and leaned into the lips that were probably a million times softer than his.

He remembers all of it clearly, from the way Heechul cried into his shoulder at three in the morning because they shouldn't be together and no one could know, from the way he choked back the tears building in every fiber of his being when Heechul turned to walk away with a girl who he could be together with, who everyone could know about, and never spared him another glance.

That was at the end of spring.

Jungsoo furrows his eyebrows, draining off the last sips of coffee. He misses Heechul; he always does, but in the autumn months when he's not working himself to death the memories flicker by in his brain more prominent than ever. He misses Heechul - he misses the days of laughing together, being free together, before they began hiding away into their own shells and before they began to care what the rest of the world thought.

He wonders if Heechul misses him too.

He wonders if Heechul is spending the autumn months with a girl now, with happy parents and jealous friends asking him when he's going to get married, wonders if Heechul is still wearing that terribly outstanding red coat, wonders if Heechul's drinking the same coffee that he used to drink with Jungsoo with a different person.