Try-Hard, Sin Harder

31. Jeon Jungkook

Unlike the ones before him, the fourth familiar stranger didn't try to hide what he was thinking behind a smile.

Blotched, scarlet patterns coloured his cheeks beneath the tear streaks. His eyes were swollen and red as if irritated. But this wasn't simple allergies. He had been crying. He had been crying for a long, long time. I could read him like a book.

No one walked into a room like that unless their heart was breaking.

He stood next to my bed, and gripped the back of the chair, but didn't sit. Silver threatened to slip from his eyes as he beheld me, but he didn't break his gaze. "How?" he asked me.

I tilted my head. My voice was hoarse as I spoke. "How what?"

"How is it that the strongest person I know is breaking down before me?" he asked, more to himself than me.

He sunk down into the chair, resting his head on his palms. A sob broke from his lips. "I-I hate it," he choked out. "I hate seeing you like this. This isn't you. The real Keira wouldn't be falling apart like this. She said she wouldn't ever leave."

Wouldn't be falling apart?

I was already cracked to begin with.

Smiles are not super glue. They don't fix everything.

I think that deep down, we both knew that.

I sighed. "Then you should find someone who can actually keep to their promises-"

"Don't speak of this so lightly!" he cried. Tears slipped down his cheeks like a broken damn. His shoulders shook with a mixture of misery and ire. "There's no me without you! You're my saviour. The window that let light creep back into the darkness I was trapped in for so long. All I need is you."

He sobbed, and hung his head again. "No matter how difficult everything was, or how much we put you through, your smile never once faultered. I watched you give up your money. Watched you tend to others before you had finished healing yourself, and I know I wasn't the only one," he said. "So many times I've caught others staring at you. I was angry, and jealous, and each glance made my eyes burn. I wanted nothing more than to be at the receiving end of your kindness. It wasn't fair.

"When I'm walking down the streets with you, it's like a new light is cast upon the world. But when I see you sharing that light with other guys, it makes me so scared and angry that I feel sick," he continued. "Seeing you like this right now is even worse. Without your light, I'm back in that darkness I faught so hard to break from."

He chuckled sadly. "I hate myself for thinking that I'll never be as great as my Hyungs. When we went out to the farmer's market all those weeks ago, I finally told you. But then you wrapped your arms around me, and told me to stop lying to myself. You didn't believe a single word I uttered, and instead went out of your way to prove to me that I did matter. For the first time, you rendered me completely speechless. And I trusted your words. You made me feel so great about myself, and that eventually blossomed into somewhat of a confidence."

"But all that is gone now," he told me. "When you vanished into a darkness of your own, you took that part of me with you. Just once more, I want you to reassure me that I'm enough."

He leaned forward on my bed, reaching out for me. His hand cupped my cheek, and he rested his forehead against my own. Slowly, his eye lids closed. I watched in fascination as the drops of tears caught in his lashes glistened like starlight. His breathing slowed, as if coming into contact with me somehow calmed him. "Just once. I want that Keira to come back to me, if only for a moment. A moment with the woman I love is all I need. It's all I'll ever need."

I couldn't tell him that that woman was already gone. If she ever came back, she wouldn't be the same.

But he already knew, and strenuously pulled himself from me to leave the room.

To walk away from the woman he loved.

His name was Jeon Jungkook.