It Ends with Us • Kim Mingyu

[nine]

Above the bedstead, a set of sapphire curtains occlude the feathery noon outside the single window; marooned rain peeping through the gap — as though a teen meddling through a clandestine study. The sheets whiff of hasty perfection, the enamouring extant of gardenia clutching onto life on a scalloped edge terracotta pot across the night-stand.

Despite being a month further from November, a waft stirs me as I falter inside the threshold. How strange; it's as if I can hear the cries of souls long dead humming upon its embrace, reaching towards me with such tender cruelty.

Shudders soar over my spine, and I retreat at once. What dark spell have you cast in your room while I was gone, Yoon Jeonghan?

I rummage through the living room, the dining room, just about the entire space I can stumble upon. That lanky witch isn't here. Perhaps he's somewhere upstairs — wallowing in the luxury of his Spotify playlists.

As much as my tongue prickles to school him about the hysteria of his zone, he's had it grueling today. He can use a onetime lucky pass, and. . . I can stay a little longer. The hour to marvel at the clutters stacking around has been a scarce guest lately.

Isn't it bizarre, though? Bedraggled places never appeal to me. Existential-crisis grappled me on my first day here; I assumed Jeonghan had chaperoned me to a mental asylum — driven by this youthful group of seemingly normal people. I can still hear it; my heart wailing to whisk back to America.

And now. . . this mental asylum reigns as the one place I'll risk everything for. How — how did they make me their own so easily?

How did it all come down to this — a selfish goodbye?

I pause near the kitchen. The counter: it's deserted today. All there sits back are a mound of ramen packets and crumpled beer cans. Those greasy chopsticks on the sink — oh boy, how much big of a fit we threw on which had belonged to whom — how grumpy we were to use hands and not label them according to . . . I don't know, maybe colours?

I shake my head as I urge all that to diminish into a sigh. Thinking will only end up in more thinking, and the more I think, the harder it is, right? So, I slip on the rubber gloves and do the dishes instead. I hope no one's watching, cause the last time I did dishes was when I lost a project to a newbie model; smaller, fair, and prettier than me.

The guys watched me doing dishes all evening long, and they just knew — not specifically, but they knew. I bawled my eyes on our way back from the movies (it was fucking kung fu panda), yet they didn't laugh; didn't ask why. They just lent a shoulder and baked me a gigantic lasagna. It tasted hilarious, but it was the best lasagna I've ever had.

It sucks that. . . shit.

I was reminiscing again, wasn't I? Dammit, Hong Kong.

***

After wiping the excess water off the edges, I find myself coming back to the living room. My neck is bedamning at me for a nap, but I'm just there gaping at the couch — wondering.

How the hell did an army of twelve giant dudes and one adorably tiny Woozi fit on this mid-sized English rolled-arm sofa?

I wonder why I never questioned it during those broklyn 99 marathons after school, or during those extreme late-night study sessions with more snacks than books, or really, ever. I wonder why I'm questioning it now of all times; where they went to and why I've to be the one to say goodbye when they didn't even wait for me and left wordlessly like that.

The answer. . . coming from Joshua, it sounded like letting go was as effortless as saying goodbye to a best friend after a hangout and knowing I'd see them again tomorrow first thing in the morning. As if it's that easy; waking up every day with a cosmic void inside my chest, questioning if it was the right decision.

No; it's not that easy letting go. It's not that easy living with a thousand what ifs and should haves inside my head when I can't answer a single one of them. It's not that easy — that's what I wanted to say to Joshua Hong.

Rather, I got up and told him I'd think about it. He gave me a what-is-even-there-to-think look, but when he realized I was watching, he said sorry. I guess he didn't want to appear judgemental, typical Hong.

I don't mind it, though. Different people have different wisdom and it is proudly theirs to carry. I just need to talk to someone. I need Mingyu. But at the same time, it's important my safe place has a safe place too, and now's not the best time for him to put up with my acutely unsafe mind.

I can talk to Jeonghan. Maybe that's why I am heading to his room again.

Honestly, I have no idea why I am heading to his room again. I have no idea why I've no idea, knowing I'll deflate into a vermilion tire of muteness the minute he utters what is it.

He wasn't inside when I dropped by almost an hour ago — God; the door is locked. He's inside. Fuck.

I can already hear myself screaming, 'Told you it wasn't a good idea, but you still did. Now suffer, little peasant.'

Suffer; yeah let's suffer. Nothing new, right?

Nothing new.

I knock, and by the third thwack, it occurs to me it's my first time doing it. Just like him, I always barge in whenever I come across. Safe to say it's matured into a habit — perhaps the reason we never criticize it.

But now, as I stand dumbfounded with my hand still floating across the frame, I understand why we are the way we are.

Knocking feels systematic, and systematic isn't exactly how we do things in this house — not since we've acknowledged we share the same blood, unfortunately. (it's mutual trust me)

He's going to give me the weirdest look ever, if not the very least.

What the actual fuck am I even doing? I'm supposed to take a nap, goddamnit!

He's twisting the nob. . . too late to go back. Alright, deep breath. You got this, just pretend normal — I'm so not losing my shit — why am I losing my shit? Stay with me shit, stay with me.

As the gap unfolds . . .oh?

I hate life so much?