I Need U

[pt. 3]: Outcasts

Loneliness.

It's not like what the movies, books, or songs portray. It doesn't hurt, not like a thousand daggers stabbing mercilessly into your heart, penetrating through all that stood in its way to demand the pain to be felt. It's not overwhelming, and it doesn't come in crashing waves, relentless and unforgiving. It's not like what you expected at all.

It's numbing.

First, you can barely notice its guile claws reaching out to you, grappling at your sanity. It's there, but not quite detectable, although you can still feel its lurking presence, hovering above your body like a shadow. As you sat on your couch alone, knees hugged to your chest and staring at his jacket that hung on the clothes rack, its very existence mocking you, you didn't know that what was to come, the loneliness, would be much worse than the initial agony, guilt, and longing of mourning someone.

Then it hits.

Actually, more like it soaks itself in your body. The dark shadow lurking by you has now made its move, cunningly planting its seed into the deepest part of your soul, where it slowly but surely stretches its roots to all the extremities of your flesh. You begin to grow tired, all of the minimal strength you had gathered to drag yourself out of bed now rapidly dissipating. All thoughts are blocked out, and the ability to use your brain properly has now been disabled.

You feel like you're sinking, drowning, in an endless mass of water that is his absence. It swallows you whole, and keeps you captive until your lungs are set afire, and your eyes blur with confusion and fear. You struggle, you scream, yet your voice comes out so soft that you can hardly hear yourself, and the only response is the bitter waters of longing invading your mouth, blocking out any sign of help you want to send. That's what loneliness feels like.

You couldn't quite comprehend it before, but now you could. Now that you have personally experienced it, you understood that emotion to a petrifying clarity.

It has been two weeks. You have not been in his embrace for two weeks, yet it felt like the longest period of time the human mind could imagine, longer than a millennium, longer than eternity. His scent of musky earth and summer breeze still lingered tauntingly in the house, threatening to redden the rims of your eyes any second. Yet the tears won't come. All you could do was let the loneliness engulf you, wrapping its choking arms around your body, for your tear ducts have turned to rust from over usage within the first week since you received the news.

The news of his death.

It still feels so surreal, so much like a nightmare that you could simply pinch yourself to wake up from. Just two weeks ago, Yoongi was beside you, joking about something stupid you guys saw on TV. Just two weeks ago he was lying beneath you, your head feeling the vibrations of his heartbeat against his rib cage. Just two weeks ago he was so solid, so real, so alive. Yet now he was merely a glimpse of your memory, a fraction of history.

You didn't know something so impacting could happen so fast. Taehyung told you he was gone within six minutes. Six minutes. It seems so short, but when you really ponder it, it also feels too long. In six minutes, you can't even go through the commercials in the intro of your favorite movie. In six minutes, you can't even settle down and let yourself slip into a good book. But also in six minutes, you can have an earthquake shake your room, have the ceiling crumble over your head, and have all the miscellaneous things slide off your desk as the ground trembles under your feet. In six minutes, you can win the lottery and suddenly become millionaire. In six minutes, you can lose the boy you have loved for the past three years to a handful of antidepressants you didn't even know he had.

That's the power of six minutes, so temporary, yet its effects so permanent.

You inadvertently realized that your legs, which were folded under your body, had lost unconsciousness, and looked down at the crumbled letter in your palm, the ink smeared with tears and the nervous sweat of your fingers. His signature still remained untouched though, the navy ink prominent against the white page, laughing at you. It's laughing at your lifeless expression as you lifted the letter before your face and stared the words "I love you." and "Kim Taehyung" once more after the thousands of times. It's jeering at your ability to lose the two people you loved the most all within two weeks.