LOVE IS NOT OVER YET JIKOOK

Chapter 12: efforts and sincerity

I jolted awake from my bed, I felt hollow, really, just empty inside, not even in pain or anything – just empty. I turned outside down, slowly my brain starts to process my memories, even if I didn't want it to. I didn't want to remember what happened, but it all came back so naturally, and then the throbbing pain was there, I wanted to cry but all my tears were all spent last night. I've only had less than four hours of sleep, and I would've spent crying all night 'til the morning came but I was too tired that I fell asleep with tears still brimming in my eyes.

'I don't love you anymore,'

The words, fuck, they still hurt. Just his voice echoing inside my head left me clutching my chest at the sudden pain erupting, it was true that physical pain was nothing compared to emotional. Physical pain was something that you can have diagnosed and be treated with prescriptions, but this? Goddamn, this feels incurable...unless, he comes back.

And just when I thought I couldn't cry anymore, my eyes started getting misty with tears, my vision being blurry but the image of the empty side of the bed – so cold and empty, was clear before I shut my eyes, trying to numb down the pain, trying to shut it out but it was of no use. The empty cold bed right beside me no matter how hard I try to feel and sense it, he wasn't there.

He left.

I wanted him to come back, just come back and not even take those words – I know it was unhealthy, too goddamn stupid of me, but you can't blame me. How can I hate him when all I ever know is love him?

I never really experienced love. Born with only a father to support me amidst poverty, yet died when I was at an early age. I was treated as a bad luck, brought nothing but misfortunes to the people around me but halmeoni, my beloved grand mother was there to support me. I guess I experienced care and love from halmeoni but that's really it, and yet I still found myself so deprived, so angry at the world for being so goddamn cruel. I bottled it all up inside, though, spending my youth being so angry and distancing myself from everyone but then, as cliché as this sounds, Jimin came along.

We met because of a chair! Can you believe that? We spent days replying to messages written on the chair we both shared but never really got to meet because we had different schedules but Jimin did everything so he could find out who I was. And then, he found out who I was, goddamn he was persistent and maybe, I was a tough nut to crack but Jimin didn't really give up. And I could see and feel how sincere he was that it came across the walls and gladly made cracks. I felt it, it was all new but I love who I was when I'm with him.

But he's all gone now, and I don't think I can ever love myself without anymore. I'll be waiting and I think if he ever comes back, I'll just take accept him and that's why it hurts more, because I'm here waiting even though I know he wouldn't come back. He made it clear when he didn't turn his back at me last night, when he went out the door without even looking back.

My phone rang, and the call that snapped me back from reality and was tantamount to the sum of all the pains the world. No matter how heavy it felt, I got myself to dress up so I can go back to the hospital.

I felt so weak, could have fainted before I could even walk up to the floor where my halmeoni was supposed to. But I had to do this because the least I could give to halmeoni was this.

I slowly pulled off the cloth covering her, and I saw it again, her lifeless form. She was gone now. It's been a day since she was, the same day I lost him. I went home, heart broken at the life shattering news that  the constant pillar in my life who taught me most of what I know had given up, I went home in search for him because I know, my heart knows and yearns for Jimin. I needed him that moment, wanted him to feel his assuring hug and hear things like how halmeoni has always been kind and maybe this was what she needed. I wanted him to kiss me and hold me like I was some kind of fragile glass but he didn't. He didn't do any of those. Just when things couldn't get worse, my life was shattered and he had my heart broken.