bleed me | jin ✔

S I X T E E N

My love,

I've been listening to Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love all day. It was our song, remember? The one we would dance to at our wedding.

It made me cry. I'd always thought the end of our love would be death, like in the song. I thought it was be the only possible way it could end. But then it ended, and both of us aren't dead. I'm not dead. 

Hopefully one day I'll feel alive again. 

J. 

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"Do you want more coffee?" She asked him, breaking the silence that had took over her small studio. 

He was munching on an egg while drinking from a coffee cup that could have been bigger, while she was having one piece of toast and half a banana. They had been awake for nearly half an hour now, yet he could count on his fingers the times they had spoken. 

Good morning. Hi. Do you want some breakfast? Sure, thank you. I have eggs and toasts. An egg is fine, thanks. Okay. Do you want more coffee?

"No, thanks. I only drink one cup usually." He answered her question softly, earning a nod from her, and just like that, they were back to drowning in silence. 

There was no avoiding it. They were drowning. Drowning in silence, in heartbreak and in avoidance of what would come.

He didn't want to feel like they were drowning. He wanted to float. But now he knew, they could never float together again.

He also knew, from how she was last night, hesitant and fragile and a little sad, that she felt the same way. And it hurt him more than he cared to admit.

She stood up from the table and put her plate in the small sink that took the whole counter. He swallowed the last bite of his egg, and focused his eyes on the bottom of his coffee cup, because he didn't know what else to do.

She was still standing, and he could feel her eyes on him. It was only after she realized that he wouldn't speak, that he wouldn't raise his eyes, that she took it upon herself to start. So she opened her heart and let the destruction begin.

"Jin... Last night..." She started hesitantly. He still didn't look up. "I don't..." She stopped herself right there. 

Why was she talking when she didn't even know how to pronounce the words that were stuck in her throat, in her mind? 

Even if she knew how to say it, what would she even say? I don't love you anymore? But she did love him. I don't want to be with you anymore? But she did want to be with him. 

Except it wasn't him she loved and wanted to be with, it was him from three years ago. He was the one she loved, the one she'd spend her life with. But that Jin had left her and gone to the army and changed and he would never be back. 

He swallowed loudly and decided that if she wouldn't, couldn't say it, he would. He would, because that's the only thing he learned in the army: If you have to do something, buckle up and do it right away, because no one will do it for you. No one. Not even the girl who deserves to break you like you broke her.

"I'm not the same, June." He said, still looking down at his cup. If he was to forever remember this day, he didn't want to see her sad eyes in his mind, he didn't want to remember her as broken. He wanted his memory of her to be a peaceful one. And so he would stare at his coffee cup as he spoke. 

"I changed, the army changed me. And I love you, and I think I'll always love you. I don't want to lose you, but I already did. I know I did, three years ago. I lost you and I lost myself after that and I'm broken now. I thought it was because I wasn't with you. But it's not that." 

He closed his eyes to prevent the tears from falling, and swallowed again, trying to make the lump in his throat disappear. But it was useless, because he knew that lump would stay there for a while. 

"I don't know what it is. Maybe the regrets, I don't know. But I'm destroyed inside and I need to fix myself. And you deserve someone who can be there for you now, not the scattered pieces of someone you loved, and who loved you, years ago. You deserve the world, June, and I can't give it to you." A tear escaped from his closed eyes. "I can't give it to you, because I need to find it first. And you can't find it for me. I need to find it myself." 

He was cut off by a sob coming from where she stood, but he still didn't open his eyes. 

"I..." He went on, but she cut him off.

"You did give the world to me, Jin. But then you took it away." Another sob. "And I don't blame you for it, because I know it wasn't your choice. But after you left, I had a decision to make. To try and forget you, or to spend the rest of my life hoping you'd be back. I chose the first, and I managed to mourn you, to mourn our love, because it died the moment you enrolled."

He opened his eyes, and raised them to see a sight that broke his heart all over again. June, barely holding herself together, a million scars bleeding endlessly in her eyes.

"It took 2 years and 4 months, to mourn us. It took 2 years and 4 months to accept the fact that our love was dead, that we were dead. It was the hardest thing I had to do, you know. And I did it." She went on, her voice full of pain.

"And now you're back, but I can't bring this us back to life, no matter how much I try. I already accepted the fact that we were dead, months ago. And when something is dead, you can't bring it back to life, no matter how much you want to. We can't bring our love back to life, Jin, no matter how much we want to. It's buried deep and we buried a part of ourselves with it. And it will never be back."

She stopped herself right there, because she couldn't go on like this, not with the heartbreak and the sob escaping her so painfully.

Her words were tearing him apart, but he needed to hear them. He needed to, because it was the truth. That no matter how much he wanted to be with her again, it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen, because they weren't the same, and the love that lived in each of them didn't belong in this world. It belonged three years in the past.

She was still crying, and he was still broken inside, but it didn't stop him from standing up and put his arms around her, softly. 

"I know." He whispered. 

She leaned on him, her weight crashing down on his chest and her sobs shaking her whole body. It was so strong that it made him shake, too. But he didn't mind, because he wanted to live this moment like it was the last one. Because he knew it would be the last one.

"I'll miss you." She cried out, her voice muffled because her face was pressed against his chest.

"I'll miss you, too." He said, and he knew it would be the last time he would say it to her. He hugged her closer, breathing her in one last time, trying to imprint in his mind the way she smelled, the way she felt. 

He held her close, because she was his lifeline.She had been his lifeline for the last six years now. But he knew now he would have to let go, because holding on only meant more pain, more lies to himself, more holding on to something that didn't make sense anymore. But letting go of his lifeline was a leap in the unknown of himself, the unknown of the world. He wanted to float in this world. But with no June, with no lifeline, he feared he would drown. 

If he wanted to float, he would have to learn. Learn to float, alone.

Maybe he would drown. But if he did, it would still be alone.