delicate | K.TH

27

AMIN

A month.

I'd thought it would be easy. I'd waited plenty of times before— for things that I'd wanted. Waiting had never been a problem for me until now.

Until now.

"Amin!"

I look up, expression completely forlorn at Shilla's voice. I'd just read Taehyung's text that he'd call me back later, because he was busy with work.

It had been two days since we'd last called.

"It's your birthday this week!" She grins, and I smile when she starts wiggling her eyebrows. "How do you feel? How do you feel being twenty seven already?"

"I'm not twenty seven yet." I point out, but she just waves her hands at me.

"Come on— your birthday's tomorrow. What difference is one day going to make?"

And I notice her voice is even more cheerful than usual. I knew that she was trying to distract me, from the fact that Taehyung himself wasn't going to be here for my twenty-seventh birthday.

She'd also noticed how much I'd been drinking lately, ever since he'd left two weeks ago.

"True."

At my flat response, her upturned smile slowly shifts to a pout.

"Amin. I never thought I'd say this to you, but I don't want you drinking anymore." She says worriedly, chewing on her bottom lip. "Seriously. You're so sad all the time now."

I laugh.

"I'm not sad. What are you saying?"

She shoots me a look. And I blink— I genuinely hadn't thought that I'd been showing myself too much. When had she noticed?

"It's so clear." Shilla sighs. "I can't really explain it, but it's just so different when Mr. Kim is with you and when he isn't. You look much happier."

"Really."

"Yes, really." She nods. "Like— you're a bright candle when he's around but these past weeks you've just been looking a soaked candle, Amin. I'm not kidding."

Laughter escapes my lips again, but it just sounds even flatter.

_____________________________

He isn't answering.

And I'm about to press the call button for the third time when I find myself faltering. Thoughts flicker through my mind, full of uncertainty.

Leave him alone.

He was probably busy, and it just made it worse that I was calling him like this. And hadn't I said that I didn't want to be someone who dragged him down a few weeks ago?

My thumb ends up finding the power button instead.

Shifting off Taehyung's bed, I pad over silently to the closet and lean against the wall, poking through the clothes hanging there.

Jackets, shirts—

My hand finds one of his hooded sweatshirts.

Slipping it down from the hanger, I pull it over my head and walk back to the bed. It was already late at night— soon to hit twelve.

And I can't keep the bitterness off my face.

My phone facedown on the nightstand, I sit blankly on the sheets. His clothes are big on me as always, the sleeves loose against my covered wrists.