Someplace Like Home |n.j

22.

A hand drags over my long face and I finally get myself to wake up, or to accept that I already have. I sit up from the bed and reach for the phone laying right next to me, and my eyes notice the tear stained spot on my pillow.

I turn on my phone and exhale, seeing that it's already two in the afternoon. My phone's low on battery too. I spent the whole night crying while flipping through pictures and videos I have of him. I have so little, but I just kept looking at them, again and again.

His eyes were always so gentle and calm. I don't know what I can do to get him to look at me like that again. I never intended for Namjoon to see the papers.

I fall back onto the mattress as I replayed last night's events in my head. He was running after me to tell me that the girl meant nothing to him, to tell me that he was mine. I didn't deserve that. I don't deserve his loyalty, our relationship was never exclusive. But I know that's what he wanted, and I've been a coward for not granting him that.

He held my face and kissed me so tenderly, I can still feel his warm lips on my cheekbone. My hand unconsciously reached to hold my cheeks as I replicated his touch. But it's not the same. Nothing will ever be the same. I've never had someone cherish me like that before, or touch any part of me as if it was precious and delicate.

I was supposed to keep quiet and let him yell at me, because he had every right to. I still don't understand how he managed to spend so many months with me without standing up for himself. I can't even handle being around myself half of the time.

"You can't just abandon people whenever you please, you can't just pick up your ass and leave everything behind. I don't know what kind of expectations are in that head of yours, but real life isn't like that."

I slipped my legs off of the bed and grabbed a cigarette from the pack on my nightstand, lighting it up with the lighter on the side.

Those words pulled me back to the first day I went to his bar, the reason why I was drunk that night, and the reason why I met him.

Yua found me at the cafe on that very afternoon and said the exact same thing. Word for word. Except he got to say it before I could leave him. I wonder how many other people have thought the same words, but never got to say it to my face.

I was mad at him because he was right. They were both right about me. Ever since I became an adult, I swore to have complete control over my surroundings. That's why I became a freelance graphic designer, why I actively move every two years, and why I give myself the power to abandon people because I want to live a life of my own expectations. All I ever wanted to was take control and to choose my own fate, because the one handed to me at birth suffocated me beyond reasoning.

But after seeing Namjoon lose it like that, I realize that I never ended that suffocation. I passed it onto him. All the anger, the yelling, the tears, they were supposed to be my own, but I polluted him, just like I had with Yua, and maybe also many others that I've already learned to forget. All I've been for the last six years is poison gas, infecting people wherever I went, acting as if nothing I did was really lethal at all. And that's all I am. I am nothing more than my selfishness and my phobia of confrontation. I feared it so much I mapped out my whole life just to avoid it, but even then, it has found its way back to me.

I brushed my sticky bangs from my forehead as I puffed out the cigarette smoke. My heels of my feet balance on the borders of my bed frame.

I'm horrible. It's the first time I'm admitting it in six years. And it feels like absolute shit.

A lump clogs my throat and I bury my face in my crossed arms as I erupted into shoulder-quaking sobs, with my tears bleeding from my eyes. It hurts, it hurts like my chest is being crushed by a heavy weight and I can't get it off. I'm all alone in my studio but it feels like I'm trapped in a cage with no space, and all I can do is just keep holding myself as tightly as my strength allowed.

Even now as I'm tumbling down, what I want to do most is to see him. I don't want to run anymore. I want to bury myself in his scent and his deep comforting voice. He's always been able to make things feel alright just by being there.

I desperately want to give in to these temptations. Maybe I could cancel my flight, somehow take back this studio, and stay here with Namjoon. I'll admit to him everything, how he makes me feel, and how I want to mean the same thing to him. I want to be his, I don't need him to be mine. We could be together here, for as long as our hearts allowed. I wouldn't have to run anymore.

But then what would make of the last six years? And my entire childhood that I spent dreaming and working for this life? Until I met Namjoon, this was what I lived for. My entire life has been dedicated to keeping vulnerability at an arm's reach and not living for anyone or anything.

If I give in, I'd be throwing that all away. All my efforts, all my sacrifices of potential friendships, everything. That would all go to waste. And I don't know anything else other than running. That's all I've learned to do for my twenty-six years of life. I'd have to start from the bottom and learn everything from zero. Learn how to love, how to accept love, how to forgive, how to be vulnerable. Can I? After all that's been done?

Can I really do that?

Why am I even letting myself fantasize? Namjoon's the only person that's ever made me feel like trying, but I've screwed it up. The last words he'd spoken to me still drill into my mind like a punishment for my very existence.

"I'm done, Nami. Don't come see me again."