Empty Space | Jeon Jungkook

Part 04

**

You toss and turn in bed, as scenes from years past unfold before your tired eyes. You've been seeing more of them lately; sometimes even when you're awake. You're sure your mind is playing with you and you wish they were made up; but they happened. You hate that you remember that they did.

Not long after Yi-soo's passing, she was everywhere - in your dreams, in the photos you'd randomly find in forgotten notebooks and untouched drawers: she'd be in your favorite movies that happen to be on when you're staying in, in your favorite songs that play in a restaurant, or a store, or on the phone of the person sitting next to you on the train. You cried one night and begged her to stop, and she listened. She left you in peace; she knew how much torture you were in. She probably just wanted to make sure you'd never forget her.

Of course you wouldn't. You were each other's lifeline. She held your hand when you said goodbye to your grandmother, the only family you ever had that old age took from you. You held your best friend's hand when her deadbeat father was taken to rehab and she watched her mother walk away from the children she never wanted.

You've been each other's family since you were 12. Ten years later, that only family you have is taken away from you, too.

Four years since she's passed. Four years since you begged her to stop visiting you in your dreams, in your daily life. Now, you wish she's who you're seeing instead.

Not the man who moved in next door to your apartment and always hinted at how good the cheese and yam bread was until you finally offered him some. Not the man who kept you up with his video gaming sounds and always apologized by leaving random snacks at your door. Not the man who used to ring the doorbell at 8PM, asking if you had tea because he'd run out, only to learn some time later that he does not, in fact, drink tea. Not the man who used to "accidentally" run into you at the grocery, at the park, at the restaurant where you worked.

Not the man whom you welcomed in your home, spent nights watching sappy romantic movies with, whom you kissed one particularly freezing night in February, until it was every night, until they weren't just kisses anymore. Until his lips memorized the map of your bare body, until you'd learned to react to his every touch, until your lewd sounds had been etched in his brain and his in yours. Until he was spilling his seed into you, almost every night, as if he wanted to be yours and you, his.

You wish you weren't seeing him on that night when he told you he couldn't be with you, that he had to go, that he was sorry.

You wish the heartbreak wasn't as bad every time you close your eyes and see him on that fateful day - the raid, the gunshots, the screams, your best friend's lifeless body on the floor, and Jungkook with his gun and a badge, his colleagues with somber looks on their faces, telling him that the mission was over.

That day, he spoke to you like you never went on midnight convenience store runs, like you never cried to him over the parents you never met, like you never shared a bed, or kisses, or touches. You were distraught, his words of "Young-il," "drugs," "undercover" ran over your head, unprocessed.

"I'm sorry about Yi-soo. I'm sorry about us," he said.

And that was it.

In one day, you lost your best friend and the man you'd given your heart to.

I never want to see you again, you said under your breath.

It's ironic thinking about it now. Weeks after the four-year mark of that day, he's all you see.

**