The True Alpha: Invictus // jjk

11: Identity

Many are the times in which we feel adrift in our body. Where the things that were born with us, or that with time have rooted and settled inside our heart, no longer feel like they belong to us, in the small clutch of our grasp. The hands that we used to hold the things that we loved, the ones that caused our heart to jolt in excitement and bliss, the lenses that we chose to adorn our eyes; why do they, at times, feel foreign to us? If we were the same ones who picked them? And why, after all, had we picked those and not others? It is a weird thought for one to digest but, in fact, we are merely reflections and images of the things we love. We engulf and swallow down our throats the characteristics we wish to possess, we create a world – idealistic and sometimes, fictional – in our heads based on how we hoped our life to be. Identity works in a complex way as such and sure, there must be things in us, deeply ingrained in our self, that we cannot get rid of, for they were born with us. Us and them were made together, in one rhythmic move – sudden and certain – like the rolling of the waves. It is not something we can escape and yet, we search for eyes to cover them, to mask them, to mould them and metamorphose them into what we believe its "right" or "worthy" of us. Perhaps - I wonder – that's why we fall in love with things we cannot make our own. We admire how the sky can change colours with easiness, offer us warmth and comfort, light and, at times, solitude. We too wish, we could do that to our own selves; that we cold comfort ourselves, warm up our own bodies without having to play the unfair game of life. To be able to roam free like the ocean, to be able to stop and stay stuck in time like the trees, or to be able to grow and die as we please such as the seasons. With time, some of us are quick to understand that despite nature and humanity deriving from one another, they cannot be mimicked and encompassed in their fullness – a punishment or a blessing, we obtain from harnessing reason. And so, we look to those around us, those we claim to be better than us. Identity is a web, a net; and when poorly understood, it can lead to disappointment, to a misleading road. And yet, curses of the curses, it is necessary. For if we have no guide, no image to construct our own from, then what are we, if nothing more than ghosts? Nothing more than something, less than someone. Adrift, we remain.

What we do then? When we are all by ourselves lost in that endless sea of possibilities of who we can become? We search, deeply and painfully, inside ourselves for the origin, the first spark that ever ignited in our body. And if that too is lost, we search for the other one who followed it, and the other, and the other. If we find our sparks to no longer be alive, we create one of our own.

What people often forget about identity, is its most important feature: it's ability to reinvent itself, to diverse, to die and birth again.

There was a gentle knock on Namjoon's door. It was really late, too late for anyone to be awake. In those hours, the world was quiet, empty and devoid of life. In those hours, the world slept. However, Namjoon was awake and he heard the soft knock. He raised from the couch and made his way towards the door; he found it odd that someone would visit him at that hour but once he heard the nervous tapping of the feet; immediately, his heart recognized Jungkook's presence. Curious, Namjoon opened the door. Jungkook's eyes were somber, glossy; something suffocated him, similarly to how his own father's hands had tried to do to him, moments prior. In silence, Namjoon stepped away from the door, with his head he motioned for Jungkook to enter. His feet painfully lifted off the ground as he followed Namjoon towards the couch; the moonlight tenderly cascaded inside the room. They sat facing one another; however, only Namjoon's head was tall. Jungkook's head was bent down, he stared emptily at his joined hands which were still bruised.

"I need your help"

Jungkook said heavily; the words dropped easily out of his mouth. Namjoon nodded his head and, despite sensing that something else was bottling up inside of The Alpha; Namjoon chose to ignore it. Jungkook had never been the type to open up and say what was on his mind when it came to his feelings. And the situation in which Jungkook had been forced into, didn't help at all, or so, Namjoon thought.