Taekook Oneshots

Unwritten

Seeing his handwriting always brings me back to the good old days. Back when we were younger, back when we didn't really know what we were doing but we didn't really care. In those days, we had to hide, but I liked it better that way. It sounds stupid now, now that I know better. But I liked the idea of having privacy, of having something secret. It felt like more of an adventure. I was scared of my family finding out, though now I know it was nothing to be ashamed of. 

Today, I know I should've been more proud of what we had. I should've stood up for him more, should've considered how he felt about hiding the whole thing. I should've thought before I started to speak, took more time to dive into a relationship I wasn't willing to share with the world. The pressure and the confusion and the jealousy just got too much, and it tore us apart. 

I like to think I loved him. We were very young, that's true, but the strength of emotion still haunts me today. Whenever I see certain things, whenever I smell certain scents, whenever I think of certain concepts, I just can't help thinking of him. There's something about a first love that sticks in your mind, forces you to remember the parts you'd rather forget. 

The time he caught me holding hands with a girl because I didn't know how to tell her I wasn't interested. The time I had a mental breakdown because I didn't know what I wanted out of life, and he had to hold me whilst I cried into his shirt, then the moment one of our friends walked in I backed away out of sight as if nothing happened. The time I forgot to bring something for Valentine's Day, and he was just left there staring at an empty desk with tears in his eyes. I didn't have to make it obvious that it was me. I could've given him something. Anything. Even something small. 

I wish things were different, of course I do, but I can't change my past mistakes. I can't go back in time, smack my younger self round the face and tell him to get his shit together. I don't know if that version of me would've listened to that advice. I don't know if either of us would've. 

We were young, and we didn't really understand what we had. That's part of the experience of youth, grabbing hold of things too early and then letting them go and only seeing the reality later on. 

Now, five or six years later, I don't think about that as often as I used to. It took me a while to process the breakup, longer than it probably should've, because I forced myself to hold onto pointless hopes that he'd want me back one day. He was the one who said he couldn't cope with the pressure of school and the relationship at the same time, and I accepted that at the time. Even now, I know that it was probably for the best, that things turned out as they did. 

But there's small things that bring me back to that old mindset, that remind me of the person that I fell in love with. And I can't escape them. I can't forget them. It's like a broken record, sometimes repeating in my mind until I feel like I'm going insane. Maybe there's a part of me that still loves him, even after all this time. I don't know. Maybe I haven't processed it as well as I thought I did. I don't know. Maybe, just maybe, destiny will bring us back together. I don't know.

But it's not fair on him if I demand that from him. He's got his own life now, I don't doubt. He'll have finished university now, and he'll be walking into the work force. Maybe he's already a successful artist, with a loving husband and a set of three adorable puppies he refers to as his babies. Maybe he's still figuring things out, still trying to find his place in the world. Maybe he's turned a new leaf, gone into a different line of work. 

He was always good at everything. I was always so proud of that. 

Standing here, in the loft of my parents' house, trying to sort through my belongings, there are traces of him here. Some of the letters he wrote to me are still lying in a wrapped box somewhere up here, the paper crinkled from the times I read them after the breakup, crying onto the letters. The ink's probably smudged and dried a million times now. I don't even know if they're readable anymore. Or if I should be thinking about reading them again, after all this time.