#ALEX HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRIENDO 🥰🥰🥰

[ofgentleresolve]

( and then a little more. )

a/n: just a hyurick themed birthday present for the one and only alex ( @jeoseungsaja )! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX!!! i hope this year ( and the ones that come afterwards too )will be a wonderful one 🥰🥰🥰 this is just a little something i wanted to give you!!

( lyrics of ‘love letter from the sea to the shore’ belong to delaney bailey and lee hyuk belongs to alex!! )

I think I loved you in another life Where I was the sea And you were the shore

After everything, in a time where Patrick doesn’t bring his pocket watch everywhere, Hyuk asks him a question.

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

Moments from drifting to sleep, Patrick lifts his head from his pillow, bleary-eyed. A droplet drips onto the pillowcase much to his chagrin. Wet pillowcases. His pet peeve. But then again he should have figured that would happen, taking a shower just earlier.

Not that Patrick normally does. But Hyuk always showers at least twice a day and he needs to take his second shower at night. That and well, it’s not exactly a pleasant experience, falling asleep in one’s own sweat. And body fluids, no matter how pleasant the moments leading up to such a scenario might be.

Hyuk, Patrick’s dear friend- well, that’s bit of an understatement these days, considering that they’ve been dating for quite some time now…alas, old habits die hard- frowns. “Forget it, it was a dumb question-“

“No, no,” He turns to his side and scoots closer to Hyuk. Hyuk mirrors him, flipping from his back to this side- how strange it is, truly. How they parallel without even trying. “I  was just surprised. I didn’t know you were someone who believed in this kind of…occultery.”

“I’m don’t,” Hyuk says, insistent, as he closes the space between them, limbs brushing against one another. Loose strands fall over his eyes and Patrick brushes them over his ear. His fingers tangle themselves in the strands afterward and he feels Hyuk melt beneath the pads of his fingertips. “I was just wondering, you know- your project. They…soulmates are talked about there, right?“

“I suppose it would be in the same field.” Although Patrick knows for a fact the idea of reincarnation according to Korean mythology mentioned nothing of soulmates.

Hyuk looks up at him and gnaws on his lip. A move Patrick thinks Hyuk should stop unless he wants to go for round two. “…So do you? Believe in soulmates?”

***

Like the tourist comes back to the beach I come back to you for more and more and more

He doesn’t think about them. Soulmates.

No, that’s a lie.

Because although his entire time, there have been times where he’ll have queer…flashbacks of sorts. Flashback of times he doesn’t remember. Memories of a life he’s never lived. Glimpses of a face and voice he knows he’s known all his life. The most vivid of them came recently when Hyuk slid a chrysanthemum knot bracelet into his hands for Valentine’s Day.

The green thread- verdant like the leaves of the forest- shimmered brightly against the plush velvet of the box.

( “Hand up,” his king asks him ( Ahn Hak ). Commands him. It’s a familiar one, one that is both distant and familiar…it’s Hyuk’s voice, but not quite. No, the voice is the same, but the cadence is different. Whereas Lee Hyuk speaks roughly, one of a survivor, one who clings to what little gifts he is granted, this voice speaks like a king. One who knows his own importance and therefore, the weight of a kingdom that has been rested on his shoulders.

Fabric rustles amongst the cacophony of conversation, footsteps, horses, and bells before his king, Wang Yeo, drops a norigae into his palm. The green, verdant of the forest, again shimmers in his hand.

His king is smiling cheekily, like the boy Hak had grown up with his entire life. Hak promises to treasure it for the rest of his life.

He wants his king to smile like that too, for as long as he lives. )

***

'Cause you hold in my tide I would die a thousand times Just to see you in another life

Between the two of them, they have a lot of bad ideas. And they make a lot more bad decisions too.

( Kim Sun and General Kim Shin’s execution. The massacre of their entire clan. Several more choices made in the depths of despair and under the influence of advisor Park Joong-heon. )

Hak thinks he’s topped all of them this time.

Or at least this is what he assumes, as he lays dying in the court yard of the palace, where a queen once stood and was executed too. He coughs, bleed running from his mouth.

His king is yelling at him. Pleading for him to “keep your eyes open, why did you act so stupidly again-“

Ironic considering that Yeo was the one to send him to the gallows. But then again, Hak knows he would take the same steps all over again, from picking execution over an eternal banishment, to seeing the stray arrow, to stepping in between it before it could pierce his king’s heart.

Yeo. He asks. He’s being selfish, calling his king by his personal name outside of his king’s personal chambers. Are you okay?

His king, Yeo, is crying. Sobbing, even. But he nods. Yes, he is.

Hak sighs in relief. Good. His vision is getting blurrier and Yeo’s voice grows farther and farther away. He closes his eyes.

He can’t help but hope that in another life, maybe they’ll have another chance to get it right, this time.

( A green thread untangles itself from a knot and ties one end to his finger and he watches it go round and round and round, hoping it’ll reach the other side before it’s too late- )

***

I wish you'd come with me Move with thе swells, my love I love you too much to drift completely

Park Jisoo is born colorblind. A commonality found more among men than women, his optometrist tells him,  as a teenager, but it’s nothing to be too concerned over in his case. Jisoo just can’t see red or green.

Not that Jisoo thinks he’s missing out although he supposes he would like to know why people are so mesmerized with sunsets and sunrises. Or even leaves in general. But the closest he’ll get to knowing what the warmth of sunset looks like is probably when he’s around Yuri.

Yuri, his fiancée and later, his wife. A biologist to his librarian. In this life, there is a yearning, longing that Jisoo is never quite able to shake off. It’s been there for just about as long as Jisoo can remember, even longer than when he realized unlike the other kids in his class, he didn’t have parents, let alone any known living relatives. Those kids laugh at him, in this life, for not being able to differentiate between red and green, for not having parents, for bursting inexplicably into tears whenever they take a class trip to the beach, when of all the chrysanthemum knot bracelets he could have, he picks the green one. The one that he can’t even see.

Yuri, the pHD student he runs into more than once while he works as a librarian, for all the times her temper pops a lid, calms his heart, soothes that ache in a way that no one else can ( and somewhere deep down, he senses it- there’s another thread, a red one, being tied between them ).

And yet.

And yet, the yearning never quite leaves. He can’t help but think there’s someone missing. Someone very important…

( The feeling, even in death, remains. When it is time for him to go, the grim reaper- apparently they do exist, if not in a more bureaucratic structure- in charge of leading him to the afterlife, takes him to what looks like a teahouse. While Jisoo expects to be speaking with the same grim reaper, it is to his surprise when another grim reaper takes their place.

A tall man dressed in a suit prepares tea at the counter before setting a porcelain cup in front of Jisoo. The man’s eyes are sad, if not heavy with regret. One might say he walks as if he carries the weight of a fallen kingdom on his shoulders-

Why does Jisoo’s heart clench at that thought?

The man takes a seat across from Jisoo and tells him to drink. He’ll forget about the memories of this life when he moves on to the next one. Jisoo bites the inside of his tongue- should he ask if it erases emotions too?

But instead, Jisoo glances up at this grim reaper and asks: “I’ve always…felt like there was someone missing from my life. Would you happen to know something of this?”

A flicker of surprise, if only to be followed by a mixture of remorse and hope that passes through the Grim Reaper’s face. He apologizes. Tells Jisoo that he doesn’t and that he’s sorry.  That he’s wanted to apologize all this time too and that he hopes this life was a happy one for Jisoo.

Jisoo, who does not know how to react, let alone say, merely nods because even if he does not know why the Grim Reaper has wanted to apologize, it is important to the Grim Reaper that he does so.

Who is Jisoo to deny that? Or at least he thinks he doesn’t not understand why, until he glances at his wrist. The chrysanthemum knot bracelet, no longer worn as it had been in death, is tied around his wrist- he could never bring himself to take it off. For a moment, some flashes, a color he’s never seen before.

Verdant. Green.

Jisoo looks back up at the Grim Reaper. The man with a familiar face and haunting eyes smiles back at him. He tells Jisoo he should go now and urges him to drink the tea.

As Jisoo stands from the table, he studies the Grim Reaper for what might be the last time in a long time.

“Could I ask for your name?”

The Grim Reaper points to himself in surprise before he sobers.

“Wang Yeo. My name is Wang Yeo.”

Jisoo repeats the name to himself, burning the syllables onto his tongue. “That sounds like a name fit for a king, Wang Yeo.” He gather his coat and opens the door. “I hope we’ll be able to meet again soon, Wang Yeo.” )

***

Wait for me, I'll be back because

Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. For as long as Patrick Grace could remember ( or at least as far back as Patrick can remember ), there’s always been a gnawing sense of unease, restlessness. His mother thinks it’s a result of chronic nightmares when he was younger. That they’ve only changed forms, but thankfully into something more manageable.

Patrick thinks it might be something a bit more than that.

For one thing, what his mother has defined as anxiety, it’s also a sense of…yearning? No, this is something a little more hopeful. Anticipation is the better word.

Anticipation for what is to come.

( And then in his first year of university, there is a seatmate who is rather…sour-faced. Like an unripe lemon, yet to reach maturity. Even if his English is clumsy, it doesn’t stop him from volunteering in class, even when the topic isn’t about the English language itself.

Patrick can’t stop watching him, even if he’s guarded and prefers to be alone than with their peers and perhaps in his most far-fetched dreams, maybe they could be friends-

Or at least he thinks it’s far-fetched until his seatmate, Lee Hyuk, hands him his lunch box ( bento box Patrick later learns it’s called ). An offering? A gesture of friendship.

His heart, the anxiety, spikes. And the anticipation quells. )

***

You hold in my tide I would die a thousand times

“…So do you? Believe in soulmates?”

Anchored back into the present, Patrick stares for a long moment at his dear friend. A dear, beloved face that somehow feels more familiar to him than the span of twenty years.

He slides his hands down to his dear friend’s cheeks, green threads mixing with warm skin- is this what a leaf feels like in the presence of the sunset? Verdant and alive?

Hyuk melts once again into his palms as Patrick feels his arms wrap around his back. Oh, how Patrick wants Hyuk to be this way around him forever and ever, even if fate says he can’t-

“For as long as you’ll have me. And then a little more.”

Just to see you in another life Ooh, in another life

.

.

.

fin.

#jeoseungsaja #until the end and then a little more ( patrick & hyuk. ) #( writing. ) #ALEX HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRIENDO 🥰🥰🥰 #i hope?? this was okay for me to write since i jumped in the timeline a bit... #but i was thinking about the plotting we've done and like?? i #was thinking about that concept of #soulmates of many lives....and well i guess patrick does have interesting thoughts there and i do too so this was my way of #exploring and reconciling with that <3 #this needed to get out i told patrick he could talk for ur bday and #he really went with it #😂😂😂 #of course none of this has to be canon we can definitely play around with this and if anything here doesn't sit right with you i can change #that and happily too <3 #BUT I WAS ALSO THINKING ABOUT THE SONG U SENT ME FOR THEM :'D #and i couldn't incorporate the motif of the sea/beach in there.... #BUT i wanted to include so that's why the lyrics separate the sections #fhsdkj #ANYWAYS HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN I'M SO HAPPY I GET TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU #AND THAT I GET TO WITNESS THIS WONDERFUL DAY WITH YOU FOR A SECOND TIME #🥰🥰🥰 #and i hope i will get to witness this day with you for many many years to come :'D #please have a wonderful day alex and love you lots <3 <3 <3