Romeo and Juliet | Kim Taehyung ✓

eighteen

"I visit here whenever I feel down or whenever I just feel like it," Lunai explained. "Sometimes, I just get mood swings and the pressure I've built up for months just come crashing down on me."

"Do you force yourself to build it up?" he asked.

Lunai shrugged, walking past the open gates. "I guess. It's not like I force myself. It just happens. I'm spending most of my time practicing lines, writing essays, and working. I don't have that much to worry about how much pressure I'm in, while I'm going through it. But every once in a while, I'll let loose and have fun. I can thank TaiYin for that."

"She sounds like a good friend."

"She is. Once you get to know her and get close to her, there's no going back. She's always there for me. We've been roommates for almost three years now. Next week's our anniversary," Luna replied with a soft smile.

Her smile was so nostalgic and saddening in certain ways. Taehyung let out a soft smile that resembled hers. If laughter was contagious, then why couldn't smiles be contagious too?

"Let's go, Taehyung. I want to show you something," Luna responded, nudging her head in one direction.

Taehyung followed her like a lost puppy, looking around the unfamiliar school. They climbed up many flights of stairs to get to where Lunai wanted to go. She struggled to open the metal door, so he helped her out.

The door opened loudly, banging against the other side of the wall. Lunai coughed slightly, walking out onto the school rooftop. She wasted no time in explaining why she brought him to the school rooftop.

"I had a friend. His name was Jimin. He was so special to me—in ways you might not ever understand." She paused, taking in a deep breath and staring out into the horizon. "We were five when we met. I was playing pirate with another student, and Jimin said that I was amazing at acting. He said that my emotions were on point." Lunai chuckled. "Funny, right? I'm having trouble with expressing emotions when I act now, but I could do it when I was five. That's when I started to show an interest in acting. It all started with him. I have him to thank for how far I've gotten, but I never got the chance to."

Taehyung had a bad feeling. "What happened to Jimin?"

"He disappeared from this world. He never even got to see me act seriously."

She was crying. Her nose was stuffy and the tip of her nose was cold.

"He was a sick child and only got worse from there. I was with him until his second year in high school. He died in the hospital. I didn't see his body until the funeral. I was with him two days before the time of his death. It was bound to happen, but..."

She paused another time to wipe her tears with her sweater sleeve.

"But I didn't think it was going to happen so soon. I prayed, hoped, wished that he would at least get to see me on Broadway or even on the stage at the university. That would have been enough for me. Jimin believed in me when no one else would. I loved him more than anything. If it came down to sacrificing acting or him, Jimin would have easily won. But I knew he wouldn't like that. I pushed myself to the point of exhaustion and death. I never stopped practicing. I locked myself in my room for days and I would blame myself for his death. But it wasn't my fault, was it? He inherited his sickness from his grandmother, and there was nothing I could do about that. If I had the ability to go back in time, I wouldn't change anything. Do you want to know why, Taehyung?"

Taehyung nodded, too afraid to speak.

"Because if I went back and changed him from having that sickness, he may not have become the Jimin that I loved. The Jimin that I loved was the sickly boy that I knew as a child."

"Did you... Did you love him? Like, as a boyfriend?" Taehyung asked.

"I did. God, yes, I did. He was my everything. He wasn't holding me down, but rather, he was pulling me back, so I could run forward faster. We dated from seventh grade until his death. Those four years passed by so quickly. It felt like I blinked once, and suddenly, I was thrown into the future. I come here to think about him. It's where it all started."

She was a blubbering mess. Taehyung didn't know what to do. He didn't know if he should hold her, reassure her, stand there or be silent.

He held onto her shaking body, burying his nose in her hair, making it tangled. He refused to let her go, but she didn't complain or push him away. She needed someone's company. She wanted to feel better.