Way Back Home

I Need U

Why am I in love alone?
Why am I hurting alone?

The bus seat she sat in was lumpy and uncomfortable, and the bus itself smelled like stale potato chips and old sweat. But this crappy bus was the cheapest one that Chaerin could afford, and it was taking her back to Daegu.

When Chaerin left the apartment the previous night, she went straight to the bus station. Unfortunately for her, it was three in the morning, and the first bus to Daegu didn't leave until seven. So she waited. Chaerin sat at that bus depot for four hours, carefully guarding her only suitcase, until a large bus pulled up in front of her and the doors squeaked open. She got on that bus with absolutely no idea as to where she was going.

There was nothing left for her back in Daegu, aside from Grandma Min, but Chaerin couldn't go see her. If she stepped back into that house then Grandma Min would surely call Yoongi and tell him exactly where Chaerin was, and she couldn't let that happen. The reason she left, the reason she walked out was because she desperately hoped it would shock Yoongi out of his stupor, at least enough to help him see that he can't go on like he had been. He couldn't just give up on his dreams because things hadn't been going the way he hoped they would. No matter what he believed in the moment, Min Yoongi was not a person who gave up easily. Chaerin knew that he wasn't done pursuing his music dreams, she just had to make him realize it.

"Welcome to Daegu!" The bus driver yelled in a bored, monotonous tone, startling Chaerin a bit.

She scrambled out of her seat, picked up her little suitcase, and rushed down the aisle of the bus. Chaerin stepped down the steps and stopped.

She had no where to go.

Tears pricked at her eyes as Chaerin thought about the life and the friend she left behind in Seoul. It had not even been twelve full hours and she already missed Yoongi. Perhaps that's what happens when you spend every day of the past eight years with someone, you become attached to them, you start to love them.

As the bus pulled away from the station and Chaerin was trying to hold back her tears, she still didn't know where to go. And then a strange thought popped into her mind. There was one other person in Daegu that she could see, but Chaerin was hesitant. She hadn't seen that woman in over a decade.

But before Chaerin knew what she was doing, she had hailed a cab and given the driver the address. Soon enough the cab pulled up to the gray, concrete building and Chaerin stood in its shadow. It was a horribly imposing building, with barred windows and barbed wire lining the fences. But she supposed that if any building was meant to be intimidating then a prison would be the appropriate choice.

Letting out a weighted sigh, Chaerin gathered the broken remains of her courage and walked through the doors.

ㄴㅇㄱ

"I don't understand this, I don't get any visitors!" The woman practically shouted in annoyance while the guard guided her a bit too roughly towards the meeting tables. She wasn't exactly going along willingly.

"Hey! You're set to get out in three years. Do you really want to delay that further with disorderly conduct charges?" At the guards threat the woman reluctantly calmed.

"That's what I thought," the guard mumbled.

He led the woman further through the room as she kept her eyes on the dirty tile floor. But when they stopped walking and her eyes lifted, the woman froze. It was like she was seeing a ghost.