savior complex - kth

001

"Jo, I think we should go in!" My best friend Jungkook yelled at me from the sand on the beach.

I was in the water, the waves moving at a slow and calming pace, though the weather that was coming in seemed to be very dark and rocky. The world felt so small although I couldn't see out far enough to see how the water was reacting to what looked like rain clouds above but I thought I'd take his advice and swim back to shore. I figured my family would be making dinner, maybe the Jeon's would already have walked over from their house next door.

It was rare to rain in California but it did happen, and the ocean seemed to change on me a lot. My family was fortunate enough to have our own section of Laguna Beach just in front of our house. It was big because my family was big, I was one of 7, and Jungkook was an only child and always told me how lucky I was. I didn't need to be told, that's something I already knew.

Jungkook was just watching me as I swam around and relaxed in the water, sitting in the sand with his feet buried deep within. He stood up though as I reached the tide and he picked up his shirt which he had worn while we went to a breakfast stand for a late lunch, along with my clothes I was wearing over my bathing suit. I tugged my shirt over my head but just held onto my shorts.

"I really wish you'd come out there with me again, just one time before we leave.." I said to him, both of us using our force to walk through the sand and back to the entrance of my house.

He didn't look at me as he spoke but instead looked straight ahead. "We leave in two days."

He was right, we left to go to NYC in 2 days, less than 48 hours from right now. It was a moment he had been waiting for longer than me, but I was just excited as he was now. We were going across the country to attend NYU and my life was finally going to revolve around me and ballet, not ballet just being an after school activity. I was going in as a Junior, the first two years of college I had attended a local college while Jungkook did online school. He had to go through physical therapy while also changing what his dream was. What was once to be a dancer along with me, it was now no longer an option for him. He had always been an artist, but never taken it seriously. While in the hospital he made it his new passion, taking every class that revolved around learning the ins and outs of drawing realistically, he even restarted his application process for NYU since he could no longer enter as a dancer.

We did everything together since we were 2, when his family moved in beside the house my family had built. They only had 3 kids at the time and welcomed Jungkook in like he was their own. It was me who didn't get into NYU when we were seniors in high school, and it was him who decided he would stay back with me, that he couldn't go that far away without me. Everything fell apart the first year remaining here, and although his family had enough money to pay for the surgeries and the rehab, it didn't make up for the emotional toll he went through.

The nights I would stay over so Jungkook's mom could get rest, waking up with him when he had to throw up or when he couldn't walk himself to the bathroom. The afternoons where I would rehearse my dances for him in his room and he could no longer get up and dance with me but just watch. The mornings I would wake up early to go on walks with him and only walk a few minutes before he had to turn around, to the mornings where we walked miles and up and down the beach for hours and he had no problems. He still wakes up almost every night to throw up, and has an endless amount of painkillers he has to take along with his body wanting a routine to keep it in tact. I often would sit beside him while he drew, sometimes even being the muse of the photos. Jo fixing her hair. My putting my hair into a clasp. Jo laughing really hard. He had started to get his humor back, and the jokes new were way funnier than before. Jo crying over 500 days of summer. This was my favorite movie, and I cried every time I watched it. He had once drawn me a photo of the main characters in the elevator, it hung above my bed and was the only thing I put on my walls aside from a few polaroids of my brothers.