THE TRAGEDY OF YOUTH, jungwon ✓

13 | a new start

"It's pretty up here," Jungwon murmured almost to himself. I kept my distance, not at all eager to turn into a blubbering, wailing mess if he did something stupid like hug me. "The stars are barely visible, but it's cool."

Up on the twenty-fifth floor, the roof, the sounds of the traffic didn't completely fade, but it was a lot quieter than usual, nonetheless. The stars weren't all visible, but I could see a few here and there, veiled behind the gathering clouds, threatening to rain or snow. I didn't know, I hadn't seen the day's weather forecast.

It was quiet for a long time, longer than I expected us to stay quiet. Jungwon's gaze was up to the sky, and then the road below, while mine was fixed on my phone—or more specifically, my wallpaper. A selfie of us two when we were twelve. I clicked my phone right back on whenever the auto-lock switched it off. It was an excuse to look at him but not let him know it.

I startled when a ringtone broke the silence. I looked up to see Jungwon staring at his phone with an expression of consternation, and then at me. I made no visible reaction at all, and he sighed, silencing the phone and stuffing it into his pocket.

"Before we get to the main point," he said, "we need to talk about your dad."

I stiffened. Looked away towards the distant horizon hidden behind the buildings and rooftops. "What is there to talk about? He got into an accident and died. Simple as that. What more is there to say?"

"Yoora, you're not okay," he said quietly.

"I'm fine," I insisted. "I've been able to work and go to school and stuff just fine—"

"That's not called being okay, Yoora, that's called distracting yourself from your grief!" he raised his voice a little, annoyance creeping into his tone. But it wasn't annoyance that I was being hardheaded; it was annoyance that I was so blind to my own mentality. "You've been drowning yourself in work and school so that you won't have to face the reality inside your head! Song Yoora, face reality with this the way you faced reality with me. You're not okay, and neither is your mother!"

"Why do you care?" I threw out at him, turning away my entire body. Tears welled up in my eyes as I trembled. I couldn't stop it. "You left! Why do you care that every day, I wake up missing him more than anything, wishing he were there to greet me every—"

My voice caught, but I forged on. "Why do you care that his death has destroyed me in a way worse than anything I have ever experienced, when you weren't there for me all the times I needed you? I admit, it was my own fault for never really trying to contact you, but still—" a choked sob escaped my throat "—if not him, if not my mother, you are who I need, Jungwon, and I couldn't have that! All I can do is work and work and do things I've always done in an effort to keep from drowning, and I've drowned myself in a different way while I'm at it, and still—it's not enough! I'm not enough!"

"I'm sorry!" he yelled, coming closer to me. I still didn't turn around. "Yoora, I'm so sorry I did that! I should have tried to be a better friend; I should have tried to be there for you, my best friend, the girl who mattered to me more than anyone else in the whole world! And what did I do? I placed my career ahead of you!"

Now, I whirled around. "It's not that I care about!" I shouted. "That's not what I have a problem with! I don't mind that you went ahead to chase your dreams—I encourage that! Why should you sit around and not try to reach for them? But what I do have a massive problem with is the way I was left behind! So many years, Jungwon, and I didn't even hear your voice until last month! Do you have any idea how hurt I was? Do you?"

"I don't," he shook his head. "I accept that. I'm sorry. I'll repeat that for as many times as I have to. You were subject to actions from me that you shouldn't have been. I was a kid, young and stupid, but I know that doesn't excuse it. I can't believe I was, even as a kid, ever embarrassed of the fact that a girl was always hanging out with me. I should never have treated you that way all the times I hurt you, and leaving you in the dust was the final straw that even I recognized."

"Why did you lie to me?" I asked, holding back more choked sobs, but tears were falling freely down my face now. "That night, when you said you were busy—"

"I was busy that time," he interrupted. "It was that the hyungs insisted on taking me on a sort of treat, and I didn't think that you'd be there. I couldn't deny them; they were too stubborn about it."

I stared at him for a long moment, crying, but still holding back. I felt sick and cold and strangely out of step with the rest of the world, barely hearing what Jungwon was saying but somehow I understood everything.

"I'm sorry I was such a selfish jerk. Such an insensitive asshole. You deserved better; I know I didn't give you that. But I want to make it up to you, Yoora. I want to make it up to you and fix our wrong turns. We stumbled along the wrong path, but we can, if we try, find our way back onto the right one. Will you let me help with that?"

He held out his arms. I could see that he sincerely meant it. That he regretted it all.

With a sob, I ran into his arms and threw my own around him, feeling the warm cocoon of his embrace envelop me, and I just cried and cried louder and harder than I had ever done before. He was crying, too, but I barely noticed that; I just buried my face in his chest and sobbed my heart out.

I was crying for myself, because I had let things get so out of control. I was crying for Jungwon, because he had messed up and hurt me so much and my tears were the tears I hadn't let escape ever since I was nearly fourteen. I was crying because of my dad, too, mostly. I missed him so much that it was like a glass shard was lodged in my chest, right above my heart, pressing down and slicing through the muscle. The mucus that built up in my nose and throat was my blood spraying through my body.

I was crying out of relief, too, that I had Jungwon back with me, and he regretted what he did, and that he cared about me, too. I didn't know if it was in the same way as I did, but he cared, and I was wrong to think that I didn't matter. I was so relieved and so, so happy that he did. I knew that if I ever needed help, he'd be there, and he'd be there to help my mother, too. Maybe his parents, as well.

Eventually, we stopped crying, and sat down leaning against the railing, but we didn't let go of each other. My arms dropped to my lap, but the warm cocoon of his arms still stayed around me, and I rested my head against his shoulder. I could do that without lowering my head too much. I was still sniffling and hiccupping a little, but he seemed to have gotten a control of himself, mostly.

"I'm sorry, too," I whispered to him. "For not doing my part well enough. For never saying what needed to be said."

"It's okay," he whispered back to me. "We're going to ignore all that now. Or put it all behind us, to phrase it better. It's a new start, okay?"

I closed my eyes. "A new start."

"A new start, for us two," he said as I pressed myself further into his warm hug. "And we should probably get inside...it's about to start raining."

"In a bit," I murmured. "Let me relish this for a moment. I've really missed you, Yang Jungwon. I've missed you more than I'll ever admit."

"I've missed you too, Song Yoora," he surprised me by softly kissing my hair. "I'll never leave you behind again."

I believed him, this time. It was a new start, like he said it, and I'd have to start trusting him if I ever wanted to let it be just that. Otherwise, if I'm always skeptical, how can it?

And that's just what I'm doing. Even when we finally picked ourselves off the ground, heading back inside, and back into the apartment, I trusted that he'd be there. Even as we told my mother that we had patched things up, I believed that we truly had. I mean, there was more to talk about, of course, but we would eventually get to that.

Even as he said goodbye after a day of lazing around with me, watching movies, and a lot of ENHYPEN content by my request (he spent much of the time cringing, wishing he could delete his existence), to make up for the time that I had ignored the achieving of his dream, I believed we were going to be okay.

I trust that we'll be alright.