FALLING SLOWLY ||Complete||

Raison d'etre

He buys it on a whim then worries halfheartedly. The delicate design makes him pause. Last reaction to a gift he brought for someone had left a sore impression that he knows not how to imagine what her reaction would be. Still he clutches it in a closed palm and swallows - recalling the fire in her eyes the last time they had looked into his.

So always associated Peonies with Ha Jin, one of the reasons it being her favorite flower. He remembered the scent of their crushed petals on her hands when she had tended to him before - leaving the flowers lying on the ground at the threshold. The memory makes him pause - she had been disappointed of him. He unfolds his palm with a sigh. The porcelain Peony lies there, delicate thin white petals unfurling from a shell pink pearl lying in the middle, tendrils of pink bleeding into the petals. The flower which looked as fragile as if it was real, but eternal in its form hang from a striking silver chain now nestled in a cold coil against the skin of his palm.

He lifts his eyes cautiously, for she hadn’t said a word since, and steals a look at her reaction. Her eyes remained lowered, studying the creation presented before her and her lashes cover their expression. So swallows again.

“Do you like it?” His curiosity makes him question, for a moment her eyes flicker into his. He holds his breath for a moment, something dark and twisted about his mother ghosting over his conscious. She turns away without a word. A wince - a stab of pain, he stumps on it before the emotion unfurls. But instead of walking off, her fingers reach behind and sweeps her hair over her shoulder bearing the milky expense of the back of her neck.

“You can throw it away if you -”

Her sigh is soft, a faint crush of petals.

“Put it on…”

A spot of warmth pulses inside his chest, growing larger with each step he takes towards her. His fingers tremble when he works on the tiny clasp to undo it. The silver against her pale skin shimmer like moonlight and his exhale comes out short, trickling against her ear. He feels the shiver that runs across her skin at the contact. His heart skips a beat, drunk on something novel and elating. So lets his fingers brush against the soft skin at her nape and hears her breath catch.

“Ha Jin - ah…” He breathes out her name, lips against her ear, tips of his fingers trailing a path down her throat towards her shoulder. She purrs, nestling against the curve of his neck, brushing her cheek against his throat. The words escape his lips on a whim too - pent up for so long, watered in silence - a feeling he could no longer withhold. “I love you.”

She stills for a moment, a breath held within her rigid body, still leaning and pressed against him - but too startled. His fears catch up too fast for him to hold on to that moment and he continues without pausing for her reply. “I don’t want to hear it back - I just want to make sure you know.”

She turns around, the peony he had tied around her throat tossing at the motion before setting delicately close to her pulse. It is hard to continue when she is watching him with that expression in her mild brown eyes, so he swallows again. “You don’t have to feel the same now that you know perhaps I’m not what you imagined first when you fancied me…”

His words hang awkwardly between them, until she reaches out to caress his face. Tips of her fingers are cold as ice, her lashes flutter when she draws close. “Now that you know, you’ve seen - bad things - I’m afraid you don’t feel the same way.”

“When I first stalked you,” she chooses the words with a hint of laughter, her lips curl upwards at the memory. “You weren’t my celebrity crush.”

She reads the surprise in his eyes quite well and leaves her palm resting against his cheek. “You reminded me of a boy I knew as a kid.”

His eyes narrow a little, and she presses on before he works out another worry.