Chapter 12
TWELVE
ALMOST FOREVER - JUNG YONGHWA
“I can’t believe he even posted that! We swore to each other those concept photos were never going to see the light of day!” Cal whined, throwing an arm over his face and collapsing dramatically on her bed—as if they hadn’t broken the last one. “That traitor!”
“But I need to see them! Cal, please!” Lia laughed, climbing on the bed after him as Cal thrashed and tossed the phone behind his head, where the shelf behind the headboard held a charger and a lamp.
“Never.” He shook his head, putting one hand on Lia’s waist to keep her still while her shorter arms tried to reach for the phone behind him.
She was squirming, and he could feel it on his torso, and Cal really wished he could just distract her with a kiss, a touch, or literally anything.
But no. A determined Lia was a Lia that was going to get what she wanted.
Cal knew it, but he wanted to remember his last moments on earth before she lost all respect for his idol persona.
Really, he held on to it for as long as he could.
“My feed is going wild about those mysterious vampire pictures, please, I just want to see—“
“Over my dead body.”
“Your undead body. Sige na oppa,” she pouted her bottom lip down at him, which only made Cal laugh hysterically and shake his head.
What was it about aegyo that was so ridiculously adorable?
Cal never understood the appeal, but mostly because he had to be the one to do it.
But on Lia it was comical and endearingly silly.
But he didn’t relent. “Fine. I could always bribe Soobin somehow. Tell him how much I enjoy his radish kimchi…”
Cal gasped. Traitor-ess! “Lia, please, no. I will perspire!”
“Expire?”
“Both!”
“Fine! Kawawa naman me,” Lia sighed dramatically, rolling off of Cal so she was on her back in her bed.
Cal honestly had no idea who was winning here—at this point, he was just teasing her.
He couldn’t care less that the fans had seen one photo.
Well, he did. But he had jumped to acceptance when he remembered they had rehearsals tomorrow, and he could kill Siwan there.
And poor Lia was pouting, really. Cal shook his head and sat up, grabbing his phone from the shelf behind the headboard. Dongyeon had found a quick replacement for her bed while they were in Mangwon—the swap had been easy enough. And as they had recently tested, perfectly strong and sound.
Not that this room was going to be a bedroom for much longer. 40 more days, to be exact. But, anyway.
“Just remember,” he said, handing her the unlocked phone. “If you laugh, you’re laughing at an innocent nineteen-year-old boy who legitimately thought this was cool. Vampires were cool. The agency thought a vampire band would be cool.”
“And the entire fandom mourns the abandoned concept,” Lia agreed, taking the phone.
Cal could only feel a warm, bubbly happiness as he watched her expression go from absolute shock to delight, swiping through the cursed photo set.
He sighed and rearranged them so she was lying next to him and he could wrap himself around her like a big spoon.
“Are these abs real?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he scoffed.
As a twenty-year-old, he had been too rock and roll to keep things tight, or at least that was what he’d told himself.
But the military had been a lot of physical work, and pushing his boundaries had actually driven him more than he realized. So these abs, at least, were real.
“The eyeliner!” Lia gasped, very clearly zooming in on the group photo, which made them look like discount ghosts at a haunted house. With instruments. “The fake blood. In blue.”
Cal pressed closer to her even if he knew exactly what photo she was talking about, rubbing his thumb absentmindedly over the soft skin of her belly, just because he wanted to feel a little closer to her, wanted to touch her because he could.
He liked all of her. Liked that her skin had bumps, dips, marks and stretches.
Liked that he could bury his face in any part of her and feel comfort, safety.
He’d always enjoyed this kind of intimacy, and Lia didn’t mind that he was selfish about it.
“Because we had BoLTs in our veins!” he reasoned, still remembering the concept meeting when they presented this.
Lia’s skin was warm as he brushed it, and he rested his chin on her shoulder.
It was amazing how comfortable he was just lying in bed with her.
Idle fantasies of more mornings like this felt like the best kind of indulgence.
But how many more of these mornings did they have? Teddy was mixing the tracks, and they were almost done with the recording. He was running out of reasons for her to stay, for him to stay. But did he want her to? Did she want to?
“And….send.”
“Lia!” Cal exclaimed, his jaw dropped. He’d been too lost in his thoughts to realize what she was doing. She was already sitting up, holding both their phones, clearly focused on the impossible task of sending a photo from a Samsung to an iPhone without using a messaging app.
“It’s only for me! And…my sibling group chat,” she assured him, as the coven photo showed up on her phone screen. “Look at you! So young. So emo.”
“So repressed,” he said fondly. Baby Cal there was still confused about his sexuality, much too focused on debuting as the leader of a band than anything else. So willing to do anything just to be heard.
Some days Cal still felt like that kid. But other days, he was glad those days had been behind him, and now there were bigger dreams to be achieved. And at the other end of that confusion were people to love and care for.
“This will stay here,” Lia promised, pressing both phones to her chest. “Unless you wanted to revisit the concept, maybe?”
“Is that your expert marketing opinion?” he joked, poking her sides until she laughed and dropped their phones. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back down to bed with him, still tickling her until she tapped his arm twice, a sign to stop.
The two of them lay quietly in bed together, the air filled with nothing but the quiet sounds of the air purifier and their breathing.
Cal was suddenly hit by the strangest, briefest feeling of nostalgia.
Was it possible to be nostalgic about a moment that wasn’t over yet?
He didn’t know, and yet he felt it in his bones.
That he would remember this moment with her, just breathing in the morning.
There were a few times in Cal’s life that he felt honest and open without saying a word or singing a line. He wrestled with his feelings as he listened to her breathe, as she hummed ‘Bolt of Blue’ under her breath while tracing the veins on his hands, the calluses and rough skin of his fingertips.
“I think I want bibimbap for lunch.” She sighed, when they hadn’t had breakfast yet. Cal laughed. “Got any recommendations?”
How could he already miss her when she was still here? When he still had her in his arms, when she was thinking about lunch? He didn’t know. But he felt it in his bones, that familiar ache of missing someone, and his body tensed, ready to hold itself together again.
Dramatic as ever hyung, he could hear Siwan tut.
“In about three years,” he announced, wanting to cut off his thoughts, wanting to say this out loud. What could it hurt, to tell her? “When you’re so happy and adored that you forget all about me—”
She made a face to dispute the notion. Cal smiled fondly, because it was a cute face. He was going to miss it.
“When we’re thousands of miles away from each other.
When I lose my job, my band, my career, and this becomes our last mini album.
” The frown deepened even more, and it touched him that she was so upset on his behalf.
“One day, when I’m the least ready for it, I’ll think of you.
I’ll miss you. And I’ll wonder why I never asked you for more than this. ”
The silence that filled the room changed almost immediately, as if Cal had sucked all the air out with his words.
He was sure he wasn’t breathing, and neither was she.
Until the window by the bed blew open with a breeze, letting in a few stray autumn leaves.
Lia scrambled to close the window while Cal wondered where he’d fucked up this time.
She stayed there, her face and her body illuminated by the autumn’s morning light.
“You know why we can’t,” she said.
“Can’t we?” he asked, and he was provoking her, maybe.
Because he knew perfectly well that it made no sense for them to.
But he was selfish and never had a plan if his life depended on it.
“Can’t we have more, Lia? You can stay with me.
You can tell me all the ways I can make this band work, and I can take you to all the places I never went with you. We can be happy.”
“Wait. Are you serious?” Lia asked, frowning down at him.
“I want to ask, at least, if it’s on your mind?
Because it’s been in mine. I like how you fit into this space.
” That was a lie. He didn’t just like it.
He’d gotten used to it. Had started to breeze through his runs, his morning gym sessions in anticipation of their mornings together.
Had accepted that he was down an office in his apartment and started moving things to the studio.
The shape of his life was starting to adjust itself to accommodate Lia.
“But it’s not real,” Lia argued, and Cal really didn’t think he would be that hurt by what she said, but he felt it anyway. Like a careless flick of a wrist. He must have winced, because Lia looked devastated. “I mean…it’s real, but we aren’t…this version of us is just a version of us.”
“What?”
“Cal. I’m not like this all the time.” Lia indicated herself in her pambahay clothes, in bed, her hair fanning her shoulders, a pimple patch on her forehead. “And I don’t want to be like this all the time.”