When It Comes To You |j.k

27: 半

I hugged her. Tightly. So tightly I don't find myself ever letting go.

I'm sobbing. So hard I can't hear her cries. But I know she's crying too by the way she's quavering in my arms.

"I missed you so much." I choke as I speak, putting my nose to her neck and kissing her all over.

"I thought I'd never see you again." She whimpers and it broke my heart in two. I finally pull us apart to take a look at her, and she looks horrible.

Frantically, I look to Alex who was standing awkwardly next to Axl, "Have you guys been feeding her? At all?"

He nods, "We fed her, provided her with a healthy amount of sleep time, gave her leisure activities and tried our best to make her feel at home. The issue was that she wasn't participating in anything we've organized."

I look at her eye bags, the tear stains on her cheeks, the frown that takes over her face. And I almost fall apart.

I promised my parents that I'd take care of her. If they could see us they'd be so disappointed. I've let them down. I really have this time.

Everything is wrong.

Nothing is okay right now.

"When can we go home? I want to go home."

I'm going to break her heart.

"This is our home now, Lana."

"No," Her lip shivers and I see the tears in her eyes return. "I don't like it here. I want to go home."

I stay silent as I stare guiltily to the floor.

"Why are we here, Aera?"

If I tell her she'll hate Jungkook.

He's a victim too.

And I know what being hated feels like. He's been hated enough in this lifetime.

"This is better for us, Lana." I turn her around to face the other kids who were busy with their arts and crafts.

"Look, now you'll have so many more friends to play with! You'll get to have fun, learn, and eat things that we couldn't have when we were on our own!"

It was hard being optimistic for her.

"I want Ms.Bae, I only want Ms.Bae."

She pushes herself into me and cries, arms around my neck with her little hands curled into fists.

———Jungkook's

"Jungkook, you're gonna have to go back home sooner or later."

I've run away from home.

"You're eating up all my food, and you're taking up a lot of space."

I told Namjoon about my parents sending Aera away, and i've been staying at his house.
It's a small studio. It's quite different from mine, but I can take it.

As long as I'm not back there.

Not with my filthy father.

"I'll help you pay rent."

"With what, your parents' credit card?"

i nod.

"They can terminate it, you know. They'll probably do that. They'd probably do anything to get you back home. Even if you're dying of hunger. They're evil."

He takes the bag of dorito chips from my hands and stuffs a handful in his mouth.

"They know i have a safe place to stay. I'm not that immature to not take care of myself."

"You know what I find weird?" He asks, handing me back the bag of snacks, which I voluntarily pushed back to him.

"What?"

"You still go to school regularly and they haven't thought of telling the school that you've runaway from home, and neither have they tried to come get you."

"It's their dumb pride. They want me to go back home crawling."

I hate them.

"Well," he tries to change the topic. and when he does, the atmosphere doesn't get any lighter. "Have you been able to contact Aera yet?"

I told them I couldn't reach her number.

That isn't the truth.

"No, i suppose she changed her number or something of that sort."

I still have her number. And i'm pretty sure she still has mine.

It's not that i can't reach her.

It's because of me.

I'm a coward.

I can't call her. I don't know how to face her anymore.  I miss her like hell. But I don't even know if i have the right to.

"Maybe we should go look in the orphanages around the city. We'll find her."

"Yeah,"

I think it's better I don't see her again. No matter how much I want to.

"I guess." I look to my hands and let out a sigh.

She's in my past now.

Her smile, her sweet soft lips, her charming voice, her comforting words, her long brown hair, her rosy cheeks when I kiss her, her hands that envelope mine perfectly like a puzzle.

It's all in my past now.

The moments we shared on the way to school, on the green grass field, at the cafe during her shifts, and the conversations we shared at my house.

It's all in my past now.

But the heartache in me whenever I picture her face, the pain in my heart whenever I can't find her in the hallway at school, the tears when I can picture her so clearly but when i open my eyes she stays gone.

All of that remains.

It's been so hard without her.

I know it's selfish but a part of me wishes she's feeling it to.

It scares me to think that she won't need me as much as i need her, that she's already moved on.

It scares me to think that I could be the only one holding on to a lost memory.