hurtbeat
hurtbeat
979w; pg (young k/nayeon)
(noun) in the limbo between being in love and falling out of it, and being hurt by this back and forth.
a/n: seven months later and i still just want to read/write a lot of brian/nayeon for no reason. this was supposed to end differently but well. oh well. i hope the formatting works.
“If you have time” becomes -
Late night drives with the windows rolled down, his speakers blasting the playlists she’d make on his phone. Brian listens to them on his way to school and drowns in the synths and high-hats of her remix-favoring tastes.
Her reaching for his hand in the middle of Myeongdong, blushing when she sees him smiling like a child that got what he wanted for Christmas and muttering just to make sure you don’t get lost, her bunny teeth showing the entire time.
Watching movies together through Skype, Nayeon always falling asleep with her cheek propped up by her fist sometime between one and two in the morning and drowsily blinking awake right in time for the ending, angry pink mark of where her knuckles pressed against her face tattooed near her left cheekbone. When she asks if he was watching, Brian tells her what the movie was about, not that he was paying more attention to her than the plotline.
Him asking her to call him while they’re sitting across from each other at the coffee shop, just to make sure he saved his new ringtone settings and the name Nayeon’s saved under in his contacts shows up on the screen. He spends the next ten minutes laughing so hard there’s tears in his eyes, trying to wrestle the phone out of her hands as Nayeon keeps saying, really, Brian, really? “tokki?” and attempting to change it. She locks him out of his phone for five hours, but that just means Nayeon treats him to dinner too.
Being the first ones they’d talk to in the morning and being the last ones they’d talk to before they’d fall asleep, and in Nayeon’s case, sometimes without hanging up.
Her wrapping her favorite scarf around Brian until he looks like a half-unraveled mummy, insisting he’ll freeze his ass off otherwise, no matter how much he tries to pretend that holding her hand “makes him warm enough.”
Leaning closer to her on one of those late night drives, parked in front of the Han River, seatbelt digging uncomfortably into his neck and some of his hair that Nayeon keeps suggesting he should get trimmed falling into his face, when he asks, can I kiss you?
Pretending they’re going mattress shopping as an excuse to roll over new beds.
Something Nayeon says when they make plans once the new school year starts.
Eating convenience store ramen for lunch and four bags of the cheapest snacks they could find, on the grounds that they were too addicting to stop before every last crumb was gone. They both don’t have room to eat dinner that night.
Skyping once a week - her in the stairwell of her dorm building, him in the kitchen, the only place he can turn the lights on without waking up his roommates - updating one another about their lives, talking about nonsense, the occasional late night serenade from Brian.
But mostly talking about nonsense.
Her arms around his shoulders and his forehead against one of hers when he finds out he didn’t get the job offer he really wanted.
Texts with links to funny videos, or videos about desserts (nayeon). Texts with songs he thinks she’ll like (brian). Usually, she’s heard them before and likes sending him a smug ㅋㅋ i know, it’s good right? Brian thinks people in his lectures probably judge him for smiling at his phone.
Something Nayeon starts saying every time they make plans.
Skyping once a month - always at a time her roommates aren’t going to be in the room, Brian sitting in his bed, textbook and homework balanced between his knees - updating one another about their lives, talking about nonsense. But mostly updating one another about their lives.
These calls ends fairly quickly.
Sending texts in the middle of the night, right before falling asleep, half-forgotten. (him)
Not reading them until the next afternoon. (her)
Listening to Nayeon’s old playlists that he never got around to deleting off his phone one afternoon on the bus. Brian wonders what songs she’d tell him to download these days.
Listening to the radio as she restocks the shelves at her part-time job and hey. This song sounds familiar. Nayeon remembers on her commute home that it’s one of the songs Brian sent her a couple months ago, one of the ones he thought she’d like but hadn’t heard before.
Something they never seem to have enough of anymore.
hey, tokki nayeon, when can i come and see you?
Staring at his texts for hours as she’s lying in bed and not realizing hours were passing, biting her bottom lip and not knowing how to reply.
i don’t know
Something they try not to make for each other anymore.
A month of the occasional hey, how are you’s and i miss you texts, both parties guilty.
Skype calls planned, but unfulfilled. waiting an hour before trying again, to no avail (nayeon). Trying not to think much of it when he sees that he’s forgotten about it (brian).
Thinking about what happens when both people stop trying to breach the distance between them, and sometimes, about whether they’re just afraid that they might hurt more trying than gradually falling apart.
Drafts of unsent texts saying fifty different versions of i think we need to talk. (nayeon)
Drafts of unsent texts with all the remixes he’s recently heard because he’s not quite sure about what she’d like anymore. (brian)
Her favorite scarf, still somewhere in the back of his closet.
1:23AM: i am still in love with you
1:25AM: i’m scared you aren’t
read by 1
Fingers hovered above the call button, never to touch through screens.
(the fear of giving up an inch of themselves because stumbling through love is bruising and being so unsure of putting a foot forward that you never get closer.)
979w; pg (young k/nayeon)
(noun) in the limbo between being in love and falling out of it, and being hurt by this back and forth.
a/n: seven months later and i still just want to read/write a lot of brian/nayeon for no reason. this was supposed to end differently but well. oh well. i hope the formatting works.
“If you have time” becomes -
Late night drives with the windows rolled down, his speakers blasting the playlists she’d make on his phone. Brian listens to them on his way to school and drowns in the synths and high-hats of her remix-favoring tastes.
Her reaching for his hand in the middle of Myeongdong, blushing when she sees him smiling like a child that got what he wanted for Christmas and muttering just to make sure you don’t get lost, her bunny teeth showing the entire time.
Watching movies together through Skype, Nayeon always falling asleep with her cheek propped up by her fist sometime between one and two in the morning and drowsily blinking awake right in time for the ending, angry pink mark of where her knuckles pressed against her face tattooed near her left cheekbone. When she asks if he was watching, Brian tells her what the movie was about, not that he was paying more attention to her than the plotline.
Him asking her to call him while they’re sitting across from each other at the coffee shop, just to make sure he saved his new ringtone settings and the name Nayeon’s saved under in his contacts shows up on the screen. He spends the next ten minutes laughing so hard there’s tears in his eyes, trying to wrestle the phone out of her hands as Nayeon keeps saying, really, Brian, really? “tokki?” and attempting to change it. She locks him out of his phone for five hours, but that just means Nayeon treats him to dinner too.
Being the first ones they’d talk to in the morning and being the last ones they’d talk to before they’d fall asleep, and in Nayeon’s case, sometimes without hanging up.
Her wrapping her favorite scarf around Brian until he looks like a half-unraveled mummy, insisting he’ll freeze his ass off otherwise, no matter how much he tries to pretend that holding her hand “makes him warm enough.”
Leaning closer to her on one of those late night drives, parked in front of the Han River, seatbelt digging uncomfortably into his neck and some of his hair that Nayeon keeps suggesting he should get trimmed falling into his face, when he asks, can I kiss you?
Pretending they’re going mattress shopping as an excuse to roll over new beds.
Something Nayeon says when they make plans once the new school year starts.
Eating convenience store ramen for lunch and four bags of the cheapest snacks they could find, on the grounds that they were too addicting to stop before every last crumb was gone. They both don’t have room to eat dinner that night.
Skyping once a week - her in the stairwell of her dorm building, him in the kitchen, the only place he can turn the lights on without waking up his roommates - updating one another about their lives, talking about nonsense, the occasional late night serenade from Brian.
But mostly talking about nonsense.
Her arms around his shoulders and his forehead against one of hers when he finds out he didn’t get the job offer he really wanted.
Texts with links to funny videos, or videos about desserts (nayeon). Texts with songs he thinks she’ll like (brian). Usually, she’s heard them before and likes sending him a smug ㅋㅋ i know, it’s good right? Brian thinks people in his lectures probably judge him for smiling at his phone.
Something Nayeon starts saying every time they make plans.
Skyping once a month - always at a time her roommates aren’t going to be in the room, Brian sitting in his bed, textbook and homework balanced between his knees - updating one another about their lives, talking about nonsense. But mostly updating one another about their lives.
These calls ends fairly quickly.
Sending texts in the middle of the night, right before falling asleep, half-forgotten. (him)
Not reading them until the next afternoon. (her)
Listening to Nayeon’s old playlists that he never got around to deleting off his phone one afternoon on the bus. Brian wonders what songs she’d tell him to download these days.
Listening to the radio as she restocks the shelves at her part-time job and hey. This song sounds familiar. Nayeon remembers on her commute home that it’s one of the songs Brian sent her a couple months ago, one of the ones he thought she’d like but hadn’t heard before.
Something they never seem to have enough of anymore.
hey, tokki nayeon, when can i come and see you?
Staring at his texts for hours as she’s lying in bed and not realizing hours were passing, biting her bottom lip and not knowing how to reply.
i don’t know
Something they try not to make for each other anymore.
A month of the occasional hey, how are you’s and i miss you texts, both parties guilty.
Skype calls planned, but unfulfilled. waiting an hour before trying again, to no avail (nayeon). Trying not to think much of it when he sees that he’s forgotten about it (brian).
Thinking about what happens when both people stop trying to breach the distance between them, and sometimes, about whether they’re just afraid that they might hurt more trying than gradually falling apart.
Drafts of unsent texts saying fifty different versions of i think we need to talk. (nayeon)
Drafts of unsent texts with all the remixes he’s recently heard because he’s not quite sure about what she’d like anymore. (brian)
Her favorite scarf, still somewhere in the back of his closet.
1:23AM: i am still in love with you
1:25AM: i’m scared you aren’t
read by 1
Fingers hovered above the call button, never to touch through screens.
(the fear of giving up an inch of themselves because stumbling through love is bruising and being so unsure of putting a foot forward that you never get closer.)