Bruise (Chanyeol Angst) by peachykaix

BRUISE [ EPILOGUE ]

The heat was singeing the back of his neck as he stared at the book in his lap, fingers dragging a pen lazily along the blank surface. The paper was dotted with small dark circles from the drips slipping from his once wet hair, making the ink blown out and faded like a dying firework. Her fingers combed through his locks, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as the blow dryer jostled side to side, tickling his cheekbones. He'd always loved her hands, loved to trace the lines carved into her palms and to feel her fingers laced through his. He loved to feel them skimming along his back when he woke up naked beside her. He loved to hold them when she was trying to cook, even if she insisted it was annoying. But most of all he loved the body they were connected to.

Chanyeol loved her.

"I still think dying your hair was stupid to do for a bet." Her voice met his ears and made the smile on his lips grow, a laugh slipping out as she shut off the blow dryer. He tilted his head back, resting the crown of it against her stomach as her eyebrow quirked in his direction. "I don't see Minseok bleaching his to hell."

"That's because Minseok is a bitch, and his fiance would murder him." He laughed as he watched her eyes flicker over the pages laid on his lap, admiring the color of her skin as she read the words before her. He'd always thought she was beautiful, even before she was his, even before he knew her name, he thought she was stunning. Her beauty only grew when she let him see inside her soul. She never ceased to impress him, from how deeply her thoughts could descend to how huge her heart was when someone needed cared for.

She never let him believe she didn't care, even when she was pretending he was nothing to her, Chanyeol had known that he was more. He had been more from the first time they had sex, from the moment his lips molded into hers and stole the life from her lungs. From that moment on he had been bigger to her than a fleeting thing, but she had been everything to him from the first time he saw her.

He remembered it like a video constantly being replayed behind his lashes, the way her hair was tied up in a messy bun and her lips were downturned with annoyance he never knew the cause of. He could remember it almost as vividly as he could recall the first time he heard her voice, how it had made his lungs deflate and his chest tighten with fear. He had wanted to hear it forever, wanted to feel that spark of fire when she focused on him forever, and at that time it had been petrifying.

Time was unfair when it came to her. Chanyeol hadn't been ready to feel something so strong for another person. He hadn't been ready to crave for her so strongly, to long for her when she was busy or ignoring him for something he did. Sex was one thing, something he usually could detach from, but emotional attachments weren't his forte. Jinah had hurt him and changed him in ways that ran down to his bones. He'd gotten into the habit of not caring, of not letting feelings develop for anyone else because he believed they'd only end in him getting hurt.

His feelings for her were his phobia, every time he tried to ignore them however they had only seemed to grow. He'd tried to push her away, tried to put distance between them through the bodies of other women and hurtful comments he never really

meant. He didn't want to feel for her, didn't want his thoughts to be occupied with the girl whose presence he couldn't get enough of. He didn't want to want her when he didn't feel ready to want himself.

But with her it'd been impossible to not care, to not want to be the only one touching her skin and feeling her presence. She'd made it feel different. She'd made him feel different, and even if it was horrible and drawn out to get to a healthy place, he was thankful for it all. Because it landed him in a too big apartment with his girl next to him in the morning when he woke up, her perfect voice the first thing that greeted him every single day.