#not me needing to edit this within two minutes of posting bc there were Grammar Errors

[insteadoflight]

snores

rise from the other bed as my 

tired runs beyond feeling and into a state of being. my mother asks me for help after dinner and i respond i

“am so tired. too tired to be around people”

and she looks at me across the table with sympathy in her eyes and wishes she can do something other than stare and whisper, “okay. another time, then” and i go upstairs to my room where i will lay on my bed until now, when i am falling awake at five am and wondering where all the tired has gone.

brother sleeps through the night in the way that i cannot. 

[softkwannie]

the cream coloured knit pullover ✧ 

part of the sweater collection series ~

warning(s): references to alcohol, vvvvv lightly implied sexual activity 

-

It was funny, when you thought about it - that the sweater you felt most attached to was one whose owner you met only once. 

You twirled the hems of the material in your fingertips. Block-cream-coloured and blank in pattern, it was probably the plainest sweater of them all. Yet now, held tightly in your grasp, it felt anything but. There was danger in the very thread of it. Electricity was pulsing it alive. One look at it and you were reeling back in time, the night you received it coming into clear and colourful view. 

You could remember your journey to the bar vividly. Just as the glossy moonbeams had left the sky thick with cloudless light, the pangs of post-breakup loneliness had left your chest feeling hard and heavy. And there was only one way to ease it.

“Rough day, sweetheart?”

You glanced up, feeling your eyes widen as they focused in on the owner of the voice.

He definitely didn’t seem the ‘soft cream sweater’ type when you first saw him. Yes, woven threads of off-while wool had absolutely no place on this man’s body. Instead, a sleek black button up sat cuffed at his elbows. He was nothing else but professional behind that bar. Familiar, perhaps. 

“Whatever it is, that isn’t the answer…” he mused, pausing to look down at your glass, “...I would know.”

You couldn’t put your finger on it then, but looking back you knew exactly why you revealed what you did right then: he made you feel wanted. He wanted to listen to you. Or at the very least, he did a good job looking like he did. He freed his hands completely of dishcloths and dirty glasses as he approached you - his deep, dark eyes softened in colour and focusing solely on yours as you took a breath to speak. 

“I just ended it with someone,” you said finally, stringing a lip between your teeth, “the second guy this month.”

“How come?” 

“It’s hard to explain...”

“Try me.” He smiled. 

And before you knew it, you were making out in a taxi on the way to his apartment - your hands tangled in his hair, his hands sliding up and down your arms like the cascading reflections of city lights against the cab windows. You should have been thoughtless in that moment. Yet, they played on your mind as you pressed your lips to his. If you held your eyes shut you could smell their fresh detergent scent on his skin, and the fluorescent blonde locks of his hair twirled in your fingers became the fraying hem of a sweater you were yet to collect...

You pulled away. 

“Jeonghan, I…”

“Everything okay?” He hummed, leaning away with concern. 

“Yes, I just...need to tell you something.” 

“It was that guy from a few weeks back you just broke up with, wasn’t it? The one who ordered you the shot across the bar?”

You blinked back in awe. 

“How did you know?”

“I served you, that night.”

Of course he had. If you hadn’t been held so closely in his arms you might not have realised. He was wearing this shirt that night, too. The same black shirt with the same sleeves folded over at the same point at the crook of his forearms. 

“To be honest with you,” he continued, “I usually suck at remembering regulars’ orders and faces. But you...I knew I had to remember you.” 

You smiled up at him as he drew you in again. 

The heat of his breath against your own sent you reeling, the dense beating of your heart thundering in your ears. You almost couldn’t feel his lips as they gently touched your forehead and slowly trailed down to the tip of your nose; your focus instead was on his fingers - how they curled into yours like they were his home.

“What were you going to say, sweetheart?” He breathed in-between a few, small pecks. 

“Nothing.” You replied, wrapping your arms around his neck to be pulled in closer. 

“I think you’re going to enjoy this.” He smirked, reaching for the car door. 

He was right - you did. But that only meant one thing: you had to go. 

You hadn’t seen him since.

Some would’ve called what you had a rebound. Maybe it was, by definition. But he meant more than that to you. 

And if that was truly all you meant to him, he wouldn’t have hidden a sweater in your bag as you left the next morning, making sure you wouldn’t forget him again. 

No, not again. 

You held it close to your chest as you spiralled down the stairs. Within minutes you’d called for a cab, pleading for the driver to speed you to the bar as quickly as he could. The sweater - sprawled across your lap in a heap of knitted regret - was all you could focus on. If only he knew the effect it had on you, the effect he himself had had. How you’d been filling every hour of every day since your encounter desperately trying to stop thinking of him. 

The great, silvery doors of the place soon came into view, towering over you like they were begging you not to go in. You ignored them completely, sweeping one of them open with such force you almost hit the wall on the other side. As you entered, the small room was packed with people, the only source of light being the fluorescent beams of purple rippling over the waves of crowds in the darkness. You knew you were going to struggle to find him - hell, you knew he might not even be there to find  - but you’d come too far to leave now. 

You struggled your way through to the bar. Behind it, you could count five servers bustling up and down with drinks. Two had the electric blonde hair you knew - both huddled together at the far end. One of them had to be him. 

Holding your breath, you shuffled through the final hoards of crowds to reach the familiar surface, settling down a hand and heaving yourself forwards as though you were about to order. The furthest bartender approached, and it only took you seconds to realise - you’d found who you were looking for. 

He looked directly at you, his eyes very quickly glazing over in confusion. He froze entirely, placing down the glass in his hands down and standing completely still. 

He might have been aching with hurt, but he was exactly the same as before. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I came to return your sweater.” You replied, settling it onto the countertop. 

-

➴ jeonghan wore this sweater in this interview/photo shoot with anan web in 2017 

a/n: okay this needs to be re-edited so excuse any clarity/grammar errors but phew chile. here it is. rly i have no excuse for how long this took and i’m kinda scared its awful bc most of it has been spewed from my brain in the past few days fhfhfh and i also feel like there’s not enough exposition/its all a bit too vague/not well explained BUT HEY i wanted to put it up to get the ball rolling on this series!! hopefully you didn’t dislike it as much as i do fhfhf thanks for waiting and reading

(but who was the guy from the bar??? is he another sweater bearer??? hmmmmmmmm all will be revealed....