music box | kim namjoon

chapter 6

Although all his feelings seemed to be mushed together in an uncomfortable and uninviting mixture lately, what Namjoon felt then had to be his least favorite. Firstly, he was covered head to toe in a sheen layer of sweat, which felt terribly claustrophobic paired with how tangled he was in the white sheets of his bed. His hands were shaky, and the second he forced his eyes open, they grabbed at his surroundings in a helpless act of desperation. Like it had been going on for hours, his chest was breathless, heaving against to anxiety of his dream and the realness he felt.

It was terrifying, because for a moment, though it felt like it had lasted an eternity, he could have sworn everything was real, and waking up was the dream.

He tried not to think about the sweat on the back of his neck as he kicked off the sheets, or the tears he felt on his cheeks, or the name he had just heard himself whimper. Right when he had woken from what felt like hours of taunting, he was welcomed by the stress of his environment and the small cry for the same person he had been dreaming about before.

But he fell crashing back into his bed, not bothering to wipe his face or try to collect his breath. Because before it was gone, before the reality that was feigned had faded, he wanted to remember exactly what had pushed him so far in his subconscious to wake up such a mess.

He forced his eyes shut, squeezing the together, hoping finding himself in total darkness could paint the picture he had before again. And a part of him was still shaken, but it did not keep him from remembering the clashing of lips, and the feeling of warm skin, and a dream that was etched so real he was so dissociated now, he was not sure what truly was reality. And the blurred lines between that dream, and the real world, were even harder to differentiate, because just like in reality, he had hurt her.

And with his eyes forced shut, he could practically feel her pushing away from him, yelling at him, growing to slowly hate him.

When Namjoon opened his eyes to reveal his ceiling, he was seeing stars. But he was barely taken by his physical state. Instead, he wondered how he could ever return to a normal condition again.

How could he fight with Minji and not see her face? How could he kiss her and not imagine what Mina felt like? How could he love someone else? How could he not pick her?

And it seemed the world had fallen silent. The cicadas made no music, and the fan in Namjoons rooms sat still, and the only sounds filling the air was his own attempts of catching his breath, and the small shuffling of the sheets. He felt incredibly alone in his realization. He felt incredibly wrong.

And a terrible weight sat on his chest, and a tenseness climbed his throat, because he had picked wrong. He didn't even consider the thought of pretending, the thought of forcing himself to stick with what he had thought beforehand was right, all he did now was pull himself out of bed, tossing a shirt onto his frame, and flinging himself out the door.

He would allow himself, this once, to be entirely selfish.

-

Mina never liked Minji much, but she never expected the bland girl to swoop so low in her attempts to expel Mina from Namjoon's life completely. The music was loud, and the straps of Mina's dress dug into the tops of her shoulders, but the thing that annoyed her most was the text she had gotten from Namjoon's fiancé. And Mina knew Minji was full of determination to cleanse Namjoon of any traces of Mina, but at that point, Mina would just rather keep the clothes she had of Namjoon's for treasure, rather than surrender them back and lose the token of his scent.

And she tried to set her phone down, and maybe let a buzz carry her thoughts away, and try to focus on the very loud music or the hands that grabbed at her hips. She wasn't quite sure where she was, or who surrounded her, but she didn't really care anymore.

Because if she wasn't here, she was home, in her dorm, with the stillness of her room and the depressive silence, and that was much harder to manage than a complete sensory overload.

And somebody's hands were on her, but that was okay, and really, the music was very loud. Her thoughts were rampant, and whatever she was drinking was doing nothing for her sober mind, and so focus she tried, but it was more exhausting to do that than to give in.

She wondered where Namjoon was at that moment. If he was up late, making music. Was he watching over Minji's shoulder as she texted her? Was he sleeping soundly? Was he missing Jupiter?

And what were all things she once knew, she was now wriggling in her skin to try to adjust to not knowing anymore. He was somewhere, doing something, and she was there, surrounded by strangers, rather pathetically chasing away her apathy.

Somebody touched her back, and suddenly she felt like she was suffocating.

She may have left, but she knew she wasn't going home. Those days it was like she found any excuse to avoid the four walls of her dorm room, because it only brought out the worst of her, and she'd rather try to keep those parts at bay.

She walked rather aimlessly and wondered how over the course of the past month, everything seemed to have fallen to pieces, all with the removal of just one boy from her life. And she didn't like to think she was dependent, because she wasn't. She just missed him.

But at this point, she was trying to find a substitute. Nothing seemed to make her feel the way he did.

When she stumbled upon their spot on the beach, she felt the tipsiness inflicted by the evening hit her a little harder than before. She didn't really mind, but it didn't make her feel like it normally did. She wasn't a happy, giggly version of herself. She was just a little more numbed.

She sat down in the sand and sank. She listened to the sound of the crashing waves for awhile, but all her attention was taken from the ocean once she heard the kicking of sand and the sound of shuffling clothes.