𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 norenmin

7: it's not the same

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NA JAEMIN.

Chenle looks down at my sorry form, tears cascading in rivers down his cheeks as he realises how I've really been.

I guess he thought that maybe after three years, I might've begun to heal.

He was wrong.

Yet watching him realize it hurts, because I know he's going to blame himself.

"I haven't seen you for three years almost and you never told me you were even still around! I thought you moved to Busan - that's what everyone thought! I even visited my friends there multiple times just to see if I would run into to you but you've been here this whole time? Jaem, I've really missed you..."

He sits beside me on the bed and soon enough we're embracing each other tightly and it's like there was no distance between my childhood best friend and I.

His tears are slowly soaking my shirt but I don't care because this is the first sliver of physical comfort anyone's offered me in a long time.

"I'm so sorry, Lele." I murmur softly, and I mean it.

He just looks at me, his usually bright eyes glassy and swollen slightly from crying.

"I know." He says.

It's like a great heaviness has been lifted from my chest.

Did I really believe the bubbly boy with the bright eyes and permanent smile I'd been friends with since first grade would just leave me?

I'm assuming "everyone" meant Chenle's boyfriend Jisung and our other friend Junhui, since they were the only other people Chenle really spoke to, apart from me.

I wonder who told them I was moving to Busan...

Chenle grabs a cup of hot cocoa for each of us and I end up talking more than I've talked in a very long time.

And yet it's different.

It's different because he's not here, smiling and laughing along with us, the way he used to be.

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