COLLIDE | beomgyu

XLVII

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝.

Jiyoung doesn't know how long she's been sitting and staring at the blank page of her sketching pad in a busy café where everyone was in a world of their own. She wanted to paint a picture as a wedding gift for her two friends, one that meant something and not just a portrait of them both, but no ideas were coming up.

"Good afternoon, ma'am, may I take your—"

She looks up to her older sister and the latter was both shocked and reactionless upon seeing her younger sister at her workplace. What surprised her was how somber Jiyoung's eyes were, she knew that she wasn't the most expressive person but you would instantly know when she had gone through something just by one look if you know her enough.

"One cold brew with only a little milk, coming right up," Jiyoon wrote her order down on the small pad of paper even though Jiyoung said nothing. Being her big sister, she just knew what she wanted whenever she was at her workplace; Cold brew and someone to talk to.

"I wanted to fix things between us and then put the past behind. I didn't know it would lead to this..." Jiyoung played with her pencil, "Now, matters just became worse."

"You tried your best to give the both of you some sort of closure, that's what's important," Jiyoon tried to console her sister. She sat across her, making the most out of her 15-minute break.

"No," The younger one shook her head, refusing, "I ruined everything again. Only this time, there's nothing I can do about it anymore. I'm afraid he knows the truth now."

"So? Are you really just going to leave it at that? Without any proper goodbyes again?"

She didn't answer.

"Jiyoung, let me remind you that you're not just ending a 3-month long relationship with some fling, you're ending a 20-year connection with the only guy you've ever loved. Don't you think what you two had deserved a better end?"

"I don't want it to end."

Jiyoung gently places her pencil down beside her cup of cold brew, takes in a breath of fresh air, and then locks eyes with her sister, "You're not wrong, he is and will always be the only guy I'll ever know how to love and I do think we deserved a more proper end but you can't blame me if I'm too much of a shitshow to even gather up the courage to end everything between us once and for all."

"I thought you wanted the two of you to move on?"

"I was lying," She quickly replied, "I was lying to everyone, including myself. I told the whole world I've moved on and don't feel the same for him anymore when I can't even look at other boys without holding them to the standard Beomgyu set for me. But if I were telling the truth, which I'm doing right now, I want to go back to him... so so bad."

"I want to be with him again, I want to fall asleep and wake up next to him again, I want to come home from a long, hectic day and see him playing his guitar in the living room again, I want to know his lips and find myself vulnerable in his embrace again, I would do it all again, even go through the same unbearable pain I felt after, just as long as I am with him again."

"But it's too late," She held back tears by biting on her lower lip and diverting her gaze elsewhere, "I lost him for the 3rd time now."

"Nothing's too later or too early when it comes to Beomgyu. You're always the right time for him."

"I'm the wrong person though."

Jiyoon slowly shook her head with a smile, "8 years is longer than you think. He had all the chances to find another love for himself, one that he'd assume would be better than the love you shared, but no, right? Instead of waiting for someone new, he waited for you, he spent all those years, fulfilling his promise, up until the moment you came back. He would not have done that if you were the wrong person for each other."