Wrong Number || BBK

The One Who Keeps Calling

"Hi Taehyung. It's me again."

A pause. He hears her breathing on the line, loud with nervousness. He imagines her fingers gripping onto her phone, the device pressed to her ear.

"I know you've been busy, I just-- I wanted to talk to you." she exhales a breath, "I guess you're still at work huh?" she laughs softly, "There's a lot going on right now. Everything's just horrible. I... I don't know what to do anymore."

Her voice cracks on the last few words as her tone drops into a hushed murmur, practically causing him to strain his ears to listen to the rest of her message. There's a brief pause as he recollects his thoughts and tries not to think of how she must be feeling, all alone in her own apartment, cuddled on the couch as she tries not to let her emotions take over her sanity.

"Taehyung, am I--" the words get choked up in her throat, "am I a bad person?"

And that's when he hears the crack in her soft soprano, an indication that tears have started streaming down her face, "I try not to be. I think I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn't do anything out of line. Yet, I feel like I'm always the punching bag. People take it all out on me." she's struggling to breathe, fighting with herself and her own internal demons as he keeps on listening with a pinch at the centre of his chest, "I didn't do anything wrong. I don't understand."

She sighs then, as though realizing that all this time she had only been talking to herself and that this was actually a voice message without knowing that there had been someone who was actually listening in on her problems. He hears the shuffling of sound, probably the blanket that shifts as she moves about, before she speaks again after having regained a bit of power back into her voice.

"Anyway, I hope you had a good day. I'll talk to you soon, I guess." a small chuckle falls from her lips, except he isn't sure whether it's genuine or not, "Goodnight, Taehyung."

She hangs up.

Baekhyun can only stare at the phone, wondering how many times this woman will be calling until his roommate finally decides to pick up the damn call and get rid of her already.

------

It isn't until Jinae sets down the receiver that the sobs racket up her throat and break out into horrible, ugly tears that won't seem to stop no matter how much she tries to rein them back. They get unleashed like wild beasts and soon enough she finds herself cowered into her blanket, limbs shaking in an attempt to muffle her sobs for fear that her roommates might hear her from their bedrooms. She's gotten used to it, crying in silence. It's like suffocating but once she got used to it, she's become evidently skilled at choking back her tears and muting her voice.

She has no idea how long she sits there, curled up on her bed with her forgotten phone in hand. Her tears have stopped running, now caked all over her cheeks and snot dribbling down her nose, practically carving salted wounds into her skin. She has calmed down from the turmoil of feelings that had raged through her a few minutes ago, but there is still that sense of hollowness, as if she can still cry even when she has just emptied her entire soul of water.

It's been a few days since she's last heard of her boyfriend, though he'd warned her about his hectic schedule that had been tailored according to the medical veterinary program he'd gotten into this semester. Jinae had been ecstatic at the news, excited that Taehyung was finally getting all the chances he deserved, but with chances and opportunities came sacrifices. The young man had had to move away to a new apartment because the veterinary college was in another location altogether, isolated from the main part of campus.
And while Jinae had been all so proud about his achievement, she couldn't help but feel her heart break the day she had to bid him goodbye.