Perfect| Namjoon

6

A/n: Trigger warning- description of death of Se-ri's mother. Please tread carefully.

Se-ri

I wasn't dumb. I knew something was wrong with Nam-joon, something had happened to him after the accident. I'd known for a long time but I didn't know what or even who to ask about it. I refused to believe that the sweet Nam-joon that I'd been crushing on only as a little girl had disappeared, nowhere to be found. 

Things were going well, I was happy, so happy for the first time after my mother's death. From cloudy skies and gloomy weathers, it was back to sunshine and rainbow. My mother's absence initially felt like a hole in my heart, so terrible that it felt like someone drilled into it. I'd felt hollow and empty like a shell of my former self, my soul seemed to have left along with my mother. 

Death was infinite. She'd been there with me holding my hands, the doctors had told us that she was recovering and all of a sudden the next second things went downhill and she was immediately taken into surgery. Six year old Se-ri hadn't understood the occurrence of  events but one thing I was sure of was that my mother was in pain. My sweet, loving mother who'd done nothing but sacrifice and care for me was in unbearable pain and I couldn't allow that. But I could hardly do anything.

When the news was finally broken to me and I learnt the meaning of death, I hated it, I hated god, the world, I hated me and dad. I hated everything. Why did the universe have to be so cruel. They said god was good so how is it that they allowed such a brutal thing to exist. 

However, as time flew by, I realised that maybe death is not as merciless as people make it out to be. More inhuman would be a young, lively soul being trapped in an old withering body, the soul yearning to explore the world and themselves but the ailing body denying, slowly decaying to finally become one with the earth. It's a sort of escape for the quintessence, to find a new body and continue to explore the many different sides of itself. But my mom was young, so youthful. Surely she could have been given some more time. Life wasn't fair. And I'd accepted it the hard way, after a long painful time. 

But when you lose someone you love, you gain another. Not to replace, but rather as a reminder. A reminder that you still have a future ahead of you, a wonderful life full of meandering rivers, high mountains and beautiful valleys. Nam-joon was the person for me.

 Sometimes I thought that maybe he'd been sent as an angel by my mother herself. It brought a certain giddiness in me. It's how I knew that my mother was looking out for me, even if she couldn't have been by my side.

 And so I filled the hole in my heart with the beautiful memories of her, peaceful days when we'd do nothing but play and watch movies, serene strolls along the luscious green neighborhood of our community and bed time stories, always followed by a kiss. Though I missed my mother every single day, I'd never again felt her burning absence. 

Until today. I yearned for a comforting hug. A heart-to-heart conversation. But I knew it was hopeless to wish for something as impossible as that and so my helplessness came down in the form of big, fat tears. 

But I was also infuriated and frustrated and in desperate need for answers. Answers from the boy that I'd never wanted to believe would hide something from me and act like such an...asshole. And yet, without those answers, my brain argued ferociously with my heart, telling me something that my heart didn't want to accept. So to solve the conflict I was adamant on getting the answers. But I knew he wouldn't give them. At least I strongly believed. 

Overwhelmed. I didn't know what to do. I was tragically missing my mother but at the same time I was fuming and these emotions overwhelmed me. This was the first in a long time that it wasn't me in control of my emotions, rather they were controlling me. 

My eyes blurred, filling up with tears at a massive rate and a scream was stuck in my throat, yet it didn't come out. My claustrophobia was acting up as I felt the pale blue walls closing in on me, inch by inch, faster and faster. My breathing accelerated at a fatal place and I felt like there wasn't enough oxygen in the air. 

I needed to run, to get away from my room, which once so massive now seemed so tiny. I grabbed my coat and ran, as fast as I could, through the brown doors of my house. 

After some time my lungs burned and I needed air. I stopped right in front of a large green lawn that was famous as a picnic spot in the luxurious community.  Filling myself with the oxygen that I felt deprived. The more and more air I took in, the calmer I felt. The cool breeze that blew past me played a soothing tune that I found myself relaxing to. 

I slowly walked myself to the grassy area and lay down, staring at the starless sky that at the time seemed to be so lighted and full of them-stars. The grass poking me only helped to magnify the reminiscent scenes that flashed before my closed eyelids. A warm honey like memory that I'd kept so affectionately and deeply in my heart. 

"Eomma, how many stars do you think there are?" 

The five year old girl asked her mother who was lying next to her, both their gazes unwavering from the beautiful sight above them.  

"I don't know Se-ri-ah," her mother replied. 

"No! No! Eomma I want to know! I know you know!" The stubborn girl pressed, knowing that her mother had the answer to all of life's unanswerable questions. She looked at her mother wit big round eyes that sparkled with youth and innocence.

Her mother laughed. A sound so sweet and and warm like honey.  

"Okay Se-ri-ah, I think there are 7 billion stars," the mother replied. 

"How do you know Eomma? Did you count them?" the girl asked, eyes glimmering with curiosity. 

"No Se-ri," her mother said, smiling at the daughter she adored, a smile that matched so perfectly with the young girl's. "Because there are 7 billion people in the world. And each person has their own star. So, 7 billion stars," her mother explained. 

"Woah!" The little girl remained in awe of her mother's answer, as she always was. "Where's my star Eomma?" she asked. 

"Yours is the biggest and the brightest star sweetie," her mother replied and the girl giggled, happy with the response. 

"And you, eomma?" 

"Mine is the star right next to yours," she replied. 

And the little girl believed her, because her mother was never wrong. 

But you were wrong about one thing. 

"Eomma" I whispered out to the sky, hoping that the stars would hear it. The biggest and brightest star.