Flower Boy [JIKOOK][COMPLETE]

Chapter 39: Day 92.

Jimin:

December 1st. Day 92 without Jungkook. Just another day.

I work my job in the kitchens until late today, I need the money from over time - my rent is due soon. Once I finish my extra shift, I clear up in the kitchen and begin making my way back to my apartment. As usual, I don't say my goodbyes to the other staff. Jin, the sous-chef at this restaurant, is the only staff here who actually wants to talk to me, and who I can actually talk to as well when I feel like it. He found me out on the streets when I first came here and offered me a job. Even let me stay with him until I could finally afford a place of my own. He's become a good friend.

As for the rest of the people who work here, well... I guess they just get the impression that I simply don't talk. Not that I want to talk to them but...they don't bother questioning it too much. Even so, I've heard a few remarks from them before like 'Why is he so cold?' and 'He never says hi or bye - how rude!'. They would whisper it behind my back to each other as I worked cleaning the dishes, thinking I couldn't hear them. I sling my bag across my shoulder and undo the top button of my uniform.

I take the usual route back, through the alleyways and past the overground railway station. I walk past the station first, hearing the click clacking of the train arriving to pick up its late night passengers, the cold wind it brings along blowing the fabric of my shirt about. Even with a jacket on over my shirt, it's still freezing. It's night time, around 10pm. The dark sky was reflected in the puddles on the ground as though it had spilled onto the concrete, and the pavements beneath my feet glow with orange cast by the street lights above. I love the colours of the night. I love street lights. I love how if you look down at a city at night, all the lights give the streets below their own luminosity. How the headlights of the cars weave through the network of roads. But I don't love it so much anymore.

Every colour I see looks grey. They don't feel the same as before. Everything I hear sounds completely monotonous. Everything I eat tastes bland.

Before I know, it begins to snow, not heavy enough to settle -  just enough to create a light dusting along the roads, flakes glittering under the streetlights. The snowflakes fall down, and get away little by little. I stop for a second, looking upwards towards the sky, letting them melt on my lips.

Would I get to you a little faster if I was the snow in the air?

__________________________

Eventually I reach home. I stumble into my cramped apartment, trying to step over all the clutter to turn on the lights. I switch them on and the lights flicker before illuminating the room. I throw down my bag, and slump onto the sofa, which is already coming apart with its collection of holes. I take off my jacket and work shirt, leaving my white T-shirt on underneath. Now what. I don't feel like doing anything. I don't feel like eating. I don't feel like sleeping. I don't feel like staying awake either. Maybe I'll just run a bath. It was something to pass this mind numbing time. I run the bath, mind blank as I do so. Before I realise it's almost overflowing, and I turn off the tap.

I get in, fully clothed. I don't even care. I don't have the energy to do anything, not even get undressed for the bath. I lay back, the water seeping through the fabric, making it cling to my skin. I throw my arm over the side and rest there. Everything is silent. The only sound in the room was the swishing of water every now and then from when I moved. I just feel...alone. Simply that. I feel as though I am the only person on Earth on days like this. I dangle one of my arms over the side of the bathtub, letting all the blood flow down and feeling the prickling feeling of pins and needles at the tip of my fingers, just so I could remind myself I was still capable of feeling something.

I reach my other hand into my pocket. Something's in there. I pull it out. A polaroid? I wipe it along the dry part of my shirt to try and dry it as best as I could. I must of left this in my jeans from back home. I flip it over to look at the photo. It was of me and Jungkook. It's the one we took together where we set up the camera timer on our last day together. The photo couldn't feel anymore different from now. The sunlight poured around us in this photo, painting it's golden glow across the sky, across the ground and across our faces. Nothing was golden anymore. It feels like I haven't been able to see any other colour but grey since I left.

I love this picture. But it reminds me of something I can never have again. The words I told Jungkook the night I left replay in my head every day. How I told him it was all his fault. How I had to lie and make him think I hated him, so that he'd be angry at me and not miss me. I don't need any reminders of that summer in Busan. Whether the memories were good or bad, they still kill me in the same way.

I just hope this winter will be over soon. How much longing do I have to see snowing down to have the days of spring?

I pick up my lighter from off the floor. I flick it and the flame flickers upwards, burning in the air. I raise it to the corner of the polaroid, and watch it as it catches fire, edges turning brown and crumbling into the water.

I let it fall from my hands and onto the floor, where the picture burns up, the memory disintegrating along with it. I just want to get rid of all the memories, I want to burn them all one by one. I want to burn all my bridges and watch the smoke choke the sky.

I lean back in the bath tub, and slip under the water.