"Where there is hope, there is always pain."
When you were young, there was one thing you wanted more than anything in the world. One thing you would give your very soul up to achieve, if only it meant you would finally be able to make your mark in...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
⋖∘ʿ⋆✧⋆ʾ∘⋗
"That's the last of them!"
Jocelynn and Jimin had been unpacking for the past hour. Honestly, if Jocelynn had known she had this much stuff cooped up in her stifling hospital room, she would've forced her daughters to do most of the heavy lifting. At least then it would be less nerve-wracking.
As she begins to unpack the last box, she steals a glance at Jimin over her shoulder.
Jocelynn didn't want to ask him to help out in the first place. He just happened to visit when she and Melody were discussing her discharge date. He offered his assistance and Melody took the ample opportunity to accept the offer in her mother's place.
As obstinate children tend to do.
It's not that Jocelynn didn't want to spend time with Jimin, in fact, she's grateful to be with him outside of the suffocating hospital walls. And though she'll never admit it, Jocelynn is glad Melody intervened. Without her, she would have never mustered the courage to ask him on her own, if she was planning on asking him at all.
It's just that she can't help but feel different around him, nervous almost, as though she were a young girl again, afraid to hear the words she wanted to hear most from the person she had grown to treasure the most.
For once they are said, what is there to do then? What is more terrifying than giving yourself over to an unreliable source of happiness, with no guarantee it will last for a lifetime? What is more terrifying than to relinquish your heart, after it has already been used?
Battered and broken, beyond recognition...
Is it even possible to love someone like that?
Perhaps that empty question is why she finds herself hesitating now.
Smiling softly at the way he stares wide-eyed at the photos hanging on her wall, she sets down the box atop a growing pile in her living room, before joining him. She peers at him, but given the way his focus is trained on one of her photos, it's clear he didn't notice her approach. Jocelynn smirks before turning to the collection of photos encapsulating her family, many of which she had taken herself, and follows suit of the man beside her, ogling at them as though she had never seen them before.
"Do you like what you see?"
At the sound of her voice, Jimin finally breaks out of his focus, jumping in surprise. Jocelynn turns to him innocently, trying to stifle the growing laughter in her throat at the sight. Once he's calmed down, he scoffs at her poor attempt before nudging her playfully and turning back to the gallery of photos.
"I'm sorry, I just..." He points to the photo of Yen, his fingerprint slightly staining the glass and shaking the frame gently as he pulls away. "Is that really...?"
"Yen?" Jocelynn finishes for him, chuckling when he rolls his eyes her way. She lifts the frame off the wall, holding it in between them so that Jimin can get a closer look. "Yes. She hates that I keep it up, but I thought she looked adorable."
