pastel [3]

twenty four

Jungkook's point of view

"Do you love Taehyung?"

My whole body went numb. The question repeating through my brain over and over again.

Did I?

No, I didn't. He hurt me. He was incapable of handling his own emotions. Why should I return any? All he did was push the blame of his wrongs onto others. Chaos followed his every footstep and left me in ruins; I didn't want that again. It was all a curse, carefully crafted by omnipotent pricks to toy with mortals.

That's all I had felt, so there was no connection we had. I meant nothing to him and he meant nothing to me...

...

But why did I feel so mesmerised even now when we made eye contact? Or feel butterflies in my stomach when he'd speak with his soothing voice. He hadn't even been back for twenty four hours and I had already begun imagining what it would be like to be able to touch him without pain, to explore who he was beyond a man strung along a torturous punishment.

I had to admit, even after all these years of him being gone I still felt just the same toward him as I had the very first day we met.

Except there was no curse to fabricate those feelings this time.

Even if the emotion wasn't yet something you would call Love. It was something.

It was romantic interest, it was infatuation, it was desire. A part of me wished to explore what was beyond these fleeting emotions, to test the boundaries of my ability to love. A door that had been opened by the son of Venus all those years ago.

But how did I verbalise this? My own girlfriend had just asked if I loved someone else. How could I give her a truthful answer, when I didn't even know myself? How could I express this desire to reach further, to let myself drown in the potential of returning to a forbidden love?

The lack of an answer created a heaviness in the air between Sooyoung and I. The monologue inside my mind was so loud, screaming conflict within. Yet on the outside I was silent. Even if she knew my emotions better than I did, her apprehension grew the more I withheld from answering.

"I'm not certain..." even my words were shaky when spoken aloud, unable to hide my grimace when she didn't give any external reaction to the completely discouraging answer. "Sooyoung, I love you, please don't doubt that." I began with a pleading breath, settling down on my knees and bringing her hands into mine. "You know more than anyone this mixture of feelings I've had towards him. The fact that he is back makes that even more complicated. Because... maybe I do have feelings for him; maybe I don't. I can't tell you because I don't even know myself."

All I could hope for is that she recognised the desperation and sincerity in my words and took them as they were. It was all I could give right now, feeling like my mind would collapse if I had to try and unravel a decade long dispute between the parts of me that had shattered and the parts that had been opened in the seven months of love.

Her silence was going to kill me. Desperately I searched her face for a hint of what was unfolding within her own psyche. I had never been able to read her as well as she read me, and it was frustrating in this time. After a moment that dragged beyond what my sanity could handle she finally squeezed my hands back and nodded.

"Okay." One simple word spoken pulled me from the fall, head dropping to bow against her shoulder whilst she reached up to pull me in closer by the nape. She squeezed tighter when the wetness of my cascading tears seared her skin. "I can't imagine how hard this is," she continued with a sigh, palms stroking through my hair.

"Thank you for understanding." I breathed out, lifting up to guide her cheek down until I could press our noses together and explore the depth of her irises in search of any doubt she may have held. There was a strange expression reflected in the down crescent of her eyes that was a shock: a peaceful stillness of acceptance. "Would you hate me?"

"Jungkookie, I will always love you, no matter what you decide. I only have one request as you explore this... If you want to be with him, tell me. Don't shut me out. I will be okay."

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