Jaemin the Icy Prince on Campus - Na Jaemin NCT

15. The Swine from Hell

So here I am, writing again, curled up, and sitting in an empty trough, in the depths of the countryside, miles away from the city.

I've never sat in a trough before. This is my first time.

It is noon, but it is a lovely, misty sort of afternoon, glowing, with the autumn sun mellow, and fuzzy about the edges, kind of reminding me of the poached eggs I had for breakfast this morning.

We came here, straight after I finished the workshop. You said you couldn't go another night without me, so I checked out, and said goodbye to a sullen Hina, who avoided my eyes and nodded dumbly, and I left. It was awkward hanging out with her after our disaster of a date, and I felt even worse when I tiptoed back into the hostel that night, after that madness in the park. 

She stared at me accusingly when I came in, and said, a little spitefully, "Well, you certainly took your time, didn't you?" and looked at me, and I saw hurt, and pain, in her eyes. "He kissed you, didn't he?" she said dully, "your lips - they're all red, and swollen..."

"Yes..." I whispered, there wasn't any point lying, and she flinched, as if I had struck her. 

"I don't understand," she said, and her voice was bitter, hard. "You warned me against him, you said he had a girlfriend, and then you go and make out all night with him."

I flushed, and stammered, "No, it's not like that, you've misunderstood, let me explain, we - "

But she cut in, and said coldly, "I'm not the least bit interested in your explanation. And now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep...it's past 2 am" , and she turned stiffly to the side, away from me, and I couldn't see her face, but I could see, from her shaking shoulders, that she was crying.

Love is so cruel, isn't it, Jaemin? We're so self-absorbed, so caught up in ourselves, we don't realise that we're crushing, and trampling on other people's hearts along the way, all those innocent others, caught up somehow, and tangled with our lives. Hina liked you so much, and she still does, and I don't know if she'll ever stop liking you, but that's the way life goes; the lucky ones end up with the ones they love, but more often than not, it's a vicious merry-go-round of A loves B, B loves C, and C loves D, and so on. Loving can be so hard sometimes, and when you love someone who doesn't love you back, God, it hurts. So I'm sorry, Hina, I'm sorry I was such a selfish bitch, and I hope we'll never see each other again, because I can't look at you in the eye anymore. I'm too ashamed of myself.

So here we are, at the farmhouse, that you said you found through Airbnb, and dirt-cheap. We took two hours to reach here by train, and then it was a 20 minute trek through the woods, before we finally reached the farmhouse. You said it'd be a good learning experience for me. But I don't know, I'm so stressed, because I've never been on a farm before, and I know you haven't either. 

You said, taking a big whiff, "It's lovely, isn't it? How fresh and clean the country air smells."

 I almost choked, because all I could smell was the distinct, unmistakable smell of poo, fresh as well as dried - I wasn't sure from which animal exactly, lord knows there were so many: cows, pigs (lots of them, enough to fill a stadium at Wembley), and poultry and dogs (oh God, I am terrified of them) and cats, and some unknown creature - I'm not sure what it was exactly, it looked like a skunk, and then it leapt off, back into the trees. Come to think of it, it mightn't have been a resident of the farm, it could have come from the woods. And I felt even more terrified at the thought, who knew what other creature would emerge from those trees? A snake? Slithering between the sheets at night? Omg. I almost passed out at the thought. I caught at you, and you grinned at me.

"Are you feeling okay? You look a bit pale to me."

"Oh, I'm fine," I said faintly, "I'm just overcome by the - the beauty..."