north star (knj)

interlude

Do you think I've gone blind?
I know it's not the truth when you say, "I'm fine"

So go ahead and break my heart again
Leave me wonderin' why the hell I ever let you in
Are you the definition of insanity?
Or am I?
Oh, it must be nice
To love someone who lets you break them twice

Break My Heart Again - FINNEAS

----

NAMJOON

JULY 2020

I had done a fair share of difficult things in my twenty-six years of life.

Going against my parents' wishes to pursue music was near the top of the list, as well as debuting three years later alongside six boys who would grow to become my brothers. There were record-breaking concert tours to perform, award acceptance speeches to make. Not to mention that as leader of the world's largest band, I was expected to soothe international tensions and appeal to dozens of cultures' differing music tastes.

And despite all that...

Walking away from Lyra Perry was the hardest thing I had done yet.

I left her hotel, stepping into a torrential rainstorm. Raindrops dripped from my hair and splattered my t-shirt. I squinted through the deluge, striding down the street with no purpose or direction, accompanied only by the pounding question of why, why, why?

Why did Lyra shut down in front of me?

Why couldn't she tell me the truth?

Why did I torture myself by wanting to turn around and run back to her?

I knew Lyra - or at least, I thought I did. I thought I knew her the way I know the weight of my breathing before I fell asleep. It was as if she was an extension of my very soul.

But that had been before she had left Korea to return home to her career and brother in Los Angeles. When I had seen her in April, I had expected to find the brilliant, stunningly whip-smart woman who had bid me goodbye at the Kyoto airport. Instead, I was greeted by a shell of that woman. Lyra had been paler and thinner. Her dark eyes had flitted around the room nervously, as if afraid to turn around and see her worst nightmare.

She was still beautiful, but...hollowed out, somehow.

And Lyra had only gotten worse between that visit and my argument with her just now. In her hotel suite, she had tucked in on herself in the corner of the room, shoulders hunched. The shadows under her cheeks had been deeper, the bones in her arms more prominent.

And what about that bruise around her eye? If I knew any better, I would say it's a black eye.

Stop worrying about her, I scolded myself, shaking my head. Fat raindrops splashed from the locks of hair curled over my forehead.

But I couldn't stop. Thinking about Lyra Perry was all I ever did. I used to be occupied by wonderful thoughts full of her soft skin, her even softer lips, and the way her raspy laugh ignited shivers down my spine. Now, they were dark thoughts plagued by how she was growing thinner, how her voice sounded dull over the phone, and more recently, why the hell she felt the need to drink herself to oblivion in a grungy New York nightclub.