Jungkook: The Friendly Ghost

34. The Truth Untold

This garden is filled

With blossoming loneliness

I tied myself

To this sand castle filled with thorns

What is your name?

Do you even have a place to go?

Oh could you tell me?

I saw you hiding in this garden

I guess it's true what they say – animals feel their owner's emotion. Or at the very least, I have a dog that can pick up on social ques. While his tail was wagging like crazy when we entered the apartment, it all died down as soon as GD realized that Jungkook and I are like two dead people walking.

Oh, the irony. Oh the fucking irony.

I can't recall if we were ever this quiet. Even when we picked a fight with one another, it would always be a matter of time before one of us would stop being butthurt and reached out to the other one.

This? This is bad. I don't have a word in my vocabulary to describe how bad this is. There is no word in existence to describe this. And neither one of us knows what to say to the other.

I am no longer crying. I am just sitting in silence, while he sits next to me, on the edge of my bed and for the first time in forever, we are not touching each other, not in any shape or form.

How can I tell him anything when I don't even know what's happening? I can't process it, I can't accept it. I know it's there, the number seven looming over me but... is it? How can it be? It's surely not true.

"It is what it is," Jungkook sighs. "In hindsight, it's a good call. This limbo isn't doing good any good for anyone. Not for them, not for me, not for you. I mean, I know I said I would try and while we still can do something, I don't think it can... JJ are you crying?"

I'm not crying – I'm sobbing.

Sobbing, shaking and one step away from wailing.

"Wait, wait, please don't cry," I hear him say and the next thing I know, he is hugging me. Instead of helping, the hug has quite the opposite effect – I cry even louder. I can tell that he is saying something, that despite everything he is trying to comfort me. I can't focus on anything other than him, not even his words. I can only focus on him, his body, his skin, his smell that I don't know but have in my head so, so clearly. Only him. Nothing about him but him and the fact that I will not have this in seven days.

"Jihyun, please," I can finally distinguish his voice. "It's not the end of the world. Why are you crying?"

"Because I don't want it to happen," I point out the obvious as I sink my face deeper into his neck.

"Jihyun, sweetheart, it happens," he mumbles into my hair, as one of his hands thread through it, gently, as if I could break if he was being too rough. "People live and people die. It's the way life works. We both knew this was the most likely ending to our story."

"No," I shake my head, refusing to believe it. "I've had you in my life and I don't want you out. If anyone has a say in it, it's you and I. And I sure as hell don't want to lead a life without you."