Bruise (Chanyeol Angst) by peachykaix

BRUISE [ X ] [ FINAL ]

The world could change a lot in four months, transforming from dull and grey to full of life and color. The once white ground now was sprouting with sprigs of green, the air filled with the scent of fresh flowers blooming. Your eyes were constantly enticed, watching the cherry blossoms in the park flutter to the ground when the wind blew too hard, noticing how the number of people out every day had multiplied as the weather improved. The earth looked new, fresh, like someone had turned it off and back on again, resetting it to his most gentle settings, ones that emitted joy. It was all in stark contrast to how it had been just weeks ago. The world had moved on in the past four months, things had changed, and in some ways, so had you.

You'd moved apartments a week after breaking things off with Chanyeol, finding that waking up in the room you'd slept with him in was less than settling when you were already having trouble sleeping every night. You'd quit your job the week after, ex- coworkers constantly informing you of when Chanyeol would show up and ask for you. You'd finished your courses, a shiny new diploma sitting on the desk in your blank, empty apartment. You'd cut your hair, but in the weeks it had grown back in, irritating on the back of your neck when the air grew too warm.

Getting distance had been a good thing, but had simultaneously felt like torture. Every free moment your thoughts had drifted to the boy you'd left crying on the sidewalk. You could still picture him when you closed your eyes, see the red that rimmed his lashes and the tears that stained his skin. Sometimes you'd dreamed of kissing him, wished you'd wake up in his bed and it had all been some torturous dream, but that relief never came. You had started to heal, to put the pieces back together you had chipped away before. In some ways you were better, things had changed, but in other ways, things had not.

You still enveloped yourself in his purple sweatshirt you'd refused to yet wash on nights you felt the most alone. You still read the pages of the journal he left before you attempted to rest, the words all but memorized from the many times you'd flicked through the thick book. You still wore the perfect golden C around your neck, the weight too familiar and permanant against your breastbone to be taken away. It was the last piece of Chanyeol you got to hold onto, the beautiful gift he'd given you before it truly all began to fall apart, and it was a piece of him you never intended to let slip away, even if he already had.

You still loved him, if anything you'd fallen more in love with him each passing day. You'd found yourself looking for him places you knew he wouldn't be, disappointed every time his tall frame was nowhere in sight. The beautiful journal hadn't helped you attempt to move on either, every page was like a peek inside his locked up brain, reading his thoughts penned down in his messy scrawl. The feelings he had for you were oozing from the pages so prominently that you were surprised it wasn't waterlogged. You'd read every page three times over, memorized the photos and mementos he'd taped inside.

You could still see every dip and curve of his face when you laid down to sleep at night, could still picture the way his cupid's bow bent inwards and how wide his eyes could get when he spoke. You could still recreate the scent of his cologne if you tried hard enough to remember it. He was still vivid behind your lids when you let thoughts of him rise to the surface, like a beautiful masterpiece you locked away for when you felt the darkest, like something too precious to let anyone else see you hold so dear. You missed him, every inch of his skin and the expanse of the heart that laid in his chest.

It was difficult to think about him sometimes, to wonder where he was now and what he was doing. The guys were kind enough to not mention him around you. Sometimes you questioned if they did the same for him or if it was just that obvious you were disastrous already mentally without talking about it. You had no idea if he'd gotten away from Jinah, if she'd listened to your pleas and left him be, if he had burst free from the things holding him back and left her on his own. For all you knew he could be curled up in bed with her every night like he used to be with you, kissing her skin and leaving purple bruises in his wake.