your hand gestures, your eyes
they are faded but not gone

People said that if you loved someone, or even cared about them deeply, you would never forget some things about them. That you would remember the sound of their laugh, the way they smiled, the color of their eyes in the sunlight. Little habits. Little things.

That wasn't true.

When Taeyong emerged from the darkness, he looked...different. I didn't know if it was because of the years, or if my memory was failing me, but he did. The sound of his voice was almost alien when he grunted—I could only recognize the barest hits of it, the rough undertone, a syllable there. One of the few things I remembered as vividly as day was the shape of his hands. The pattern of veins on the back of his left hand, in the shape of a wishbone. The mark under one side of his lower lip. The dark glint in his eyes, like smokeless fire, when he looked at me. His black leather jacket.

Little things.

"Hi," he said.

My throat felt closed. There was no tug in my gut, no feeling of a free fall, nothing like the world being swept out from under my feet. Just a blankness, a calm before the storm, the only thought in my head being Taeyong Taeyong Taeyong alive safe dream nightmare Taeyong.

"Hi," I said.

Vernon's knuckles were white, veins and scars standing out a shade darker, but the gun was steady in his death grip, pointed straight at Taeyong's heart. If it hadn't been for me, he probably would have shot him already. I was torn between being awed at his control and angry at the fact that he was still suspicious.

"He's not going to kill me," I told him, but he didn't even look at me. The conviction in my voice was only a step short of bold stupidity, but short nonetheless.

"You don't know that," Vernon said. I could hear him fighting to control the snarl in his voice, the veins bulging at the side of his neck like cables, a symbol of his anger. "You know what else you don't know? That he's been with the Lees for the past three years. The same Lees that have been trying to kill you since before you were born."

His words were jarring, but I schooled my expression into a mask of calm. Taeyong was staring at me, hard, and I was staring at him right back. The last memory I had of him—with red eyes, my face in his hands and I love you on his lips—had faded into the depths of my mind, but now, looking at him, with red lips and I love you in his eyes, the force of it was so much more.

"You killed Baekhyun," I said, not taking my eyes off him, but Vernon knew I was talking to him. I could tell by the way he stiffened in my peripheral vision. "To 'protect me'."

"He didn't join the Lees to protect you—"

"I know. He did it to protect himself." I interrupted him mid-sentence. My voice was confident, but I couldn't help but falter in my belief. Wasn't I the one who had doubted Taeyong of conspiring with his family against me? How could I really trust him?

"How did he know you were here?" Vernon countered.

"Because, as you said, I was with the Lees," Taeyong spoke, his fist words since hi. "Of course I knew. How could I fucking not?"

His voice had risen to almost a tenor, a low growl that made the small hairs on my forearms stand up. His hands were half-raised, the lollipop still clutched in one of them. I felt like I was going into shock after being shot. And trust me, I knew exactly how that felt.

"He can't stay," Vernon whispered, though I couldn't imagine why. In the silence, the smallest sounds seemed amplified.

"He can." Vernon flinched at the fourth voice, calm and grounded, coming from a few feet behind me. I turned to find Jungkook standing at the door, regarding the scene with calm eyes, as if we had found a stray cat instead of a supposed traitor. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt that made his torso blend into the shadows, making him look like a phantom.

So this was why Taeyong had looked so unwavering. I had no idea how long Jungkook had been standing there—he had moved as soundlessly as a cat, cutting through the air like he was gliding. This was what he did now, stepping forward and cutting between me and Vernon, with a quelling glance at the latter.

I could see Vernon warring with himself, the conflict on his face the realest I had ever seen. Whether he would be able to overpower Jungkook was a doubt, because they more or less matched each other in physical strength. The look Jungkook was giving him was like that of a master telling his dog to stand down, and it was obvious that Vernon didn't like it.

How had he withstood it for so many years?

With a last, reluctant look, he lowered his gun, but kept it in his hand, at his side, not quite relaxed. His muscles were taut under his skin, and his hard gaze was still focused on Taeyong.

Taeyong.

"I told him where to find us," Jungkook said, looking away from Vernon as soon as he put away his gun. "Not the Lees. He could have found out either way, but I decided it would be better for us to approach him first."

He didn't speak further, but I understood the implication of his words. There was no doubt that the only reason he had told Taeyong about me was to gain a powerful informant on his side, not out of charity. No matter how good he was at playing leader, Jungkook was as cold as the Lee heir who was trying to kill me.

Taeyong said nothing, but continued looking at me. There was something fractured in his eyes, all-consuming yet hungry, and he was looking at me as though he couldn't do enough of it. I suddenly realized—almost shamefully—that he didn't care for anything else apart from this. Where I had been so focused on him just moments ago, it hadn't taken a lot for my attention to move to the current state of affairs.

"Get some sleep, all of you," Jungkook said, not sparing any of us another glance before turning around and walking into the house, soundless despite the dead leaves scattered on the ground, crunching whenever I made a move. I noticed the bags under Taeyong's eyes, and wondered what he was risking just by being here.

"We'll discuss the next steps in the morning. Show him in." Jungkook walked through the door, not wasting a second. "Welcome back."

──────

A few minutes later, we were sitting in my room.

Taeyong was lying on my bed beside me, facing me. There was no bashfulness in his gaze as it trailed all over me, drinking, searching, longing. We were lying a foot apart, as we had been for the past few minutes, not quite touching. It was strange for me, and I could only wonder what it must have felt like for him.

His hair was as fiery red as ever, spilling sangria at the roots and crimson and fire brick, bright against the plain white of the bedsheet. As I looked at him more and more, acquainting myself with the planes and angles of his face, I remembered. Slowly, but steadily. I remembered touching him, feeling his lips against the line of my jaw, tracing a path of flame. I remembered the look in his eyes from the car.

Unlike Vernon, Taeyong had never been immediate in my mind. He had always just existed in my memory, pushed to the back of my mind, rarely brought to the front. Maybe I was just too scared of him, too scared to remember him in all his light and glory, too scared to feel the pangs of longing that I knew would consume me completely in a matter of seconds.

I had kissed Vernon twice, both times pure and sweet. But with Taeyong, it had been more. It had been contact, silence and sounds, a dance of more than just feelings. I longed for him both emotionally and physically, craving his touch like one might crave a drug.

"Can I touch you?"

I started slightly, having lost awareness for a moment as I observed him. A small frown drew itself between my eyebrows, and my lips parted—could he? "Yes."

I felt something cold brush my cheek, a touch that sent spears of flame through my nerves. His fingers were callused, a new, raised white scar decorating the back of his knuckles. Despite the difference, the feeling remained the same. A whisper in my ear. A shiver down my spine.

As my eyes fluttered shut, I wondered what he had been doing for the past three years, where he had been, how he'd managed. But the twisted pathos in his eyes told me not to ask, to stay silent and complete his picture of perfection. He was different, somehow, in a way that I couldn't quite point out, and it scared me more than it should have.

The touch gave way to a deeper silence; it should have brought us closer, but I only felt wrongness. As if I was committing a grave mistake just by being there with him, but I couldn't stop searching his face, looking for a change that perhaps only lay inside.

"What were you doing out there?" he asked, in a sleep-deprived voice that went deeper than it usually did. I was remembering him, not at a speed I would have liked, but I took whatever I could get. "Why were you with..."

He trailed off, but I knew what he had wanted to ask in spite of it. Reflexively, I bristled. "None of your business," I snapped, a little harder than I had intended it to be.

It was because of the way we had argued back in Seoul, the hard stubbornness that had made us clash and connect at the same time. My memory was still only half-remembered, forgetting the caressing reassurance and soft touches in that moment, and all I felt was defensiveness. Jealousy was not something I wanted to deal with.

Taeyong's hand froze for a moment, and coldness rushed back into my skin along with an even colder guilt. "Sorry," I muttered. "I just... It's hard to get used to this."

He tried for a smile that never truly came. "To what?" The words washed over me like a murmur, relaxing, undoing the knots in my muscles. "To me?"

I was quiet for a moment, stacking my thoughts together like a pack of cards, so I could make proper sense of them. "Back then, I didn't know anything about your past," I started. "But it didn't affect me too much, because you don't have to know someone's entire life to..."

A lump formed in my throat as I searched uselessly for a word to fill the space. Taeyong watched me with broken-glass eyes, penetrating and huge. "Now, though, it's hard to see you as the person I used to know." My voice refused to rise above a whisper. "There's a gap of three years my mind can't fill, Taeyong. I know nothing about you, not if everything's changed from then, specially if what he said was true."

I didn't have to say his name for Taeyong to know who I was talking about, and I could almost see the fire reignite in his expression. "That I was with the Lees?" He scoffed, slightly, a gesture that somehow filled me with relief. "You don't have much to choose from when there's a gang of killers set on you, princess."

Princess. My breath caught in my throat, and the sight of him suddenly became clearer, as if I were looking at him through a scope. The perfect cupid's bow of his lips, more angular than most, and the way his eyelashes fell against his cheek when he blinked, and the way he breathed heavier when I was too close.

His palm cupped my cheek, and I felt it, cold and hot, against it. "No," I whispered. "I suppose you don't."