Wish (JJ Project)

Epilogue: Happiness is...

What was happiness?

That was the question that had been hanging in the back of Jinyoung's mind. He used to know what it was. He could never specify what it was, but he always knew it when he felt it. "Ah, I'm so happy," he would think whenever the corner of his mouth was hanging up so high and his heart was about to burst like a firework. However, it had been so long since he last felt it. He didn't feel it when he graduated with fairly good marks even though others was congratulating him. He didn't feel it when he got his first job as an editor in a big publishing company. He didn't feel it when his first authored novel after he quit the job became a bestseller. And that was why he couldn't identify it anymore.

All he could feel now was longing. He longed for him, and another day passed. He longed for him, and another year passed. Just like that, four years had passed without him realizing it. Four years without Jaebum.

He used to ask himself, how could he live without Jaebum? When inside he also died when Jaebum was gone? But then Mark told him to live on for the very person that left him behind. The person that made him lose the desire to keep walking on this world. The person that took the crash in his stead. The person that sacrificed his own life so he could live. And so he did, living just like that.

He would laugh at the him back then. How could he think that way when he had been living well without Jaebum for eighteen years before meeting him? A period of his life that was way longer than the time he spent with Jaebum. It was just like going back to when he hadn't known Jaebum yet. See? Soon he was already smiling again, laughing again. Just like nothing had ever happened.

But he couldn't. Every smile shaped by his lips, every laugh ringing his throat, was all for Jaebum to see and hear. So he wouldn't worry over him. So he would know that he was happy even though Jaebum wasn't there anymore. Jinyoung only hoped that Jaebum could never look into his heart. Because there was only a cold and empty space in that part of him, frozen in time by the bloody snow of the winter when Jaebum was gone. That was why he never looked for Jaebum's grave. Because the moment he came face to face with the definite proof that Jaebum was no longer living in the same world as him, all those facade he build with so much effort would crumbled down at once.

So he was looking for happiness, because it became hard to keep pretending. He didn't want Jaebum to feel sad if he knew he wasn't happy. However, how could you find something if you didn't know what it was? And again, he could only ask himself.

What was happiness?

--

Jinyoung sipped his caramel macchiato, appreciating the bittersweet taste it left on his tongue. His eyes never left the words printed over the book he was holding with his left hand as he put down the cup on the table in front of him with the other. His ears were filled with the songs he played on shuffle which he didn't really pay attention to, since he was too immersed in the book. He just played it for the sake of separating himself from the world surrounding him. However, he was dragged back the moment one of his earbuds was pulled away from his ear, and the soothing music was replaced by a deafening yell.

"JINYOOOOUUUNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!"

Jinyoung covered his buzzing ear with his hand as he looked up to meet with Jackson's grinning face, in opposite to his annoyed one.

"What?! You're disturbing other customers!"

"Just announcing the arrival of my awesome self," Jackson said as he sat across Jinyoung.

Jinyoung took off the other earbud and closed his book before putting them on the table, still irritated. "You don't have to be that loud, right? Now I'm too embarrassed to order anything again."