heavy hearts ↻ na jaemin

❏ twenty-two : : ❜

Time is a concept. It can be perceived in ways completely opposite of each other by people holding onto different ideas. But when the seesaw of perception heavies to the one saying, 'Time heals everything', Jaemin finds it hard to agree.

Time is a lot of things, but it is not a healer. He has found it always absurd how time is always thought to be the one doing the healing when it barely does anything. Be it physical or spiritual, time is simply a bystander, whilst the person hurting does the healing themselves, sometimes with additional help.

Jaemin always thought himself to be pretty capable of healing himself, hence he never sought out something or someone to do his part. Has he ever wished for it? Yes. But he knew better than to indulge in the one thing he preached against and the thing that brought him to where he was right now.

After all, Jisung, his yearlong friend, had found someone to help him heal. Which somehow ended up causing Jaemin to be a collateral damage.

Was Eunae a crush? Probably... not.

He remembers the first day they met in the cafe, they were recruited together, and things couldn't be more awkward. With Jaemin's usually friendly personality, he makes a way to get himself in people's life but Kwon Eunae was a hard case. It wasn't that he could not do it, it was that he was hesitant to do it. Something about her, something about the way she took so much space in someone's life, made him nervous to approach her. She seemed so, sure of herself, of her own flaws and strengths, so much so that Jaemin considered her to be too intimidating.

And like always, time provided little help, and it was Jaemin himself who ended up getting over his nervousness and initiated the start of a friendship between the two. And oh was it the absolute thing to keep his mind occupied all day long. Their friendship was unlike the ones they had with others. They didn't even know much about each other outside of work, they never stepped out of the bubble that was surrounding them. They bonded with not each other's life or history, but with their bare heart.

And soon, Jaemin started to get more and more curious about Eunae's life too, because he had already fallen for her heart. She was pretty much the only thing that made something as mundane as working enjoyable, as it was his only way of seeing her, of basking in her presence, of sharing their deepest and the most random thoughts and sharing a laugh.

It went on like that until one day he finally got to know a fragment of her life outside of work. It was when she let out her disappointment at not being able to talk to the guy she liked.

How funny was it that he got what he wanted for so long, a piece of her life, and got his hopes crushed at the same time?

Sometimes he wonders whether it would have hurt less if it wasn't his own friend who ended up with Eunae. Probably, but that's only because he wouldn't have to constantly watch them two together.