Coming Home

The first thing that alerted me back to consciousness was the thundering, excited beating of my heart as I blinked and slowly -too slowly- realized what my surroundings returning to how they were previously really meant.

How the culmination of my thoughts had very plainly affected the outcome of my thinking session and— well, if ‘intent is everything’ was the metric to measure by, the results quite obviously told me what I already knew.

They visibly confirmed what I already knew regardless of how I repressed or denied them.

And since I wasn’t keen to stay in denial any longer… there was no reason for me to stay where I was, in that moderately lit room with the wall that could take me back to Earth if I wanted it to.

But I don’t want it to; what I want is–

I sprang up from my chair and ran for the door, not even hesitating to try and approach the cloud wall again to test if there was any change since the urge for anything other than ‘I need to see Jun’ had completely evaporated from me; that was not my priority and I had the very firm belief that it would never be from this moment on. Ever.

I threw the door open -it was never locked in the first place which meant I could have left at any time- as a voice in the back of my mind berated me for being so foolish since the beginning when I could have made everything so much easier if I had just…

There was noise rushing in my ears again, something big and aching still thudding heavily in my chest although it wasn’t a weight that aimed to drag me down like before; this ache almost felt like hope in the way it flowed like adrenaline through my veins and urged me forward, faster and faster towards Jun, Jun, Jun–

A surprised gasp was ripped from my throat when a figure fell through the door as I yanked it open, my hand gripping tightly on the handle as I fought to keep my balance since I’d forcefully pulled myself to an immediate stop so I didn’t tread on whoever was now directly in front of me– on the floor.

Who–

“Jin.”

“Jun?!”

Before I could say anything like ‘whatareyoudoinghere?!?!’, Jun -from their place on the floor- continued to speak in a hurried, very unJun-like fashion as I stood there speechless; eyes wide and heart beating even faster because they were here.

“-I want you to stay!”

…what?

“You… you what?”

I knew that was not the correct response, but I was in shock and more than just a little overwhelmed from however long I had spent in that room drowning in my own feelings.

My mind was overworked and consequently slow on the uptake and I was… well, the only word for it was shocked.

Incompetence aside, my illiteracy didn’t seem to faze the Auspice as they hurriedly pushed forward and continued to allow more words to tumble past their lips, meeting my gaze and holding like they could convey their intent nonverbally as well if they only stared hard enough. (Reservations aside, I was inclined to believe it was working since I couldn’t tear my attention away from their wide, bright blue eyes; although that wasn’t too uncommon of an occurrence regularly either.)

“Please, stay with me; I needed to tell you before it was too late and I– I wanted you to know.”

There was so much clarity in their voice, like they’d never had trouble voicing their own wants or preferences like I knew they did; like they were absolutely sure about what they were saying because maybe… maybe they were.

How could I even-

“...o-okay.”

I very quickly kept speaking, my mouth finally catching up with my mind.

“Ah! I mean–”

I went down onto my knees so I was level to where they were still sitting, rapidly blinking my eyes in breathless bewilderment as I hesitantly reached for their hand and they took it.

“-I mean yes. Yes.”

Air was allowed back into my lungs as what I wanted to say finally left me in a rush.

My fingers intertwined with theirs and I reached out again so I could brush the hair away from their cheek like I had watched them do so many times before; my thumb resting carefully underneath a darker patch beside their eye that told me they hadn’t been sleeping.

“I want to stay with you; I want to be here with you. That’s all I want and I’m– I’m so sorry I wasn’t smart enough to realize that sooner; that I couldn’t tell you sooner.”

It was their turn to speechless, cerulean eyes going wide before misting over with a haze of disbelief as my palm intercepted the wetness of their tears. They were slow and soft like the rest of the Auspice’s emotions; private and kept carefully protected unless voluntarily given.

And they chose to give them to me.

I leaned in close, lingering in the space between polite and personal as I felt their unsteady breaths mingle with mine. My forehead bumped gently against theirs in a moment of tender assurance before I dared to move forward and press our lips together.

“Please stay.”

The response to their words was so delightfully easy and I was happy to say it; desperate to say it for all the right reasons. Finally–

“I’m here; I’m staying with you.”

Jun sighed like the world had only just managed to be saved and I closed my eyes to smile fondly against their mouth as they leaned into me, the fingers of their free hand grasping a fistful of my shirt collar so they could keep me as I slipped my own around them. Holding tight because I needed to assure myself that this was real as much as they did.

And just like that, everything was good.

Maybe it had always been simple; maybe I was the one who had been convinced things were difficult and had been trying in my most desperate form to create an adequately elaborate -and wholly unnecessary- solution.

Maybe it was Jun who had complicated things by staying silent, but I figured it was the both of us who had perfectly blinkered ourselves into martyrdom because we cared; it was utterly imbecilic when laid out like that but I suppose…

Intent was everything.

That didn’t excuse my– our bad decisions but, in the aftermath, it helped to know that we both wanted the same thing in the end. It felt good that we had managed to pull ourselves together and succeeded in the end.

And as naive and lovestruck as it may have been, I didn’t care because I found that I was perfectly satisfied with that outcome.