Blanket Of Stars | jensoo

breathe in to me

Jennie fell asleep holding me and not long after I had to carefully remove her arms away from me and get out of bed, unable to stand the physical side effects any longer. Her parents had left for work fifteen minutes prior and I decided to walk into their room. I saw how different it looked and how the only giveaway that suggested somebody slept in there was the unmade bed.

My parents didn't keep the place untidy, but it was a bedroom that if a person was to walk inside it would actually feel like a bedroom instead of a showroom. Mr Kim doesn't keep loose change on his bedside table like my father used to and Mrs Kim doesn't keep a bottle of water on her bedside table in case she gets thirsty in the night like my mother used to.

The room has long lost the familiar scent that it always had, and the stain my mother made on the carpet when she dropped her mascara brush on the floor has long been removed. My eyes close and I can see myself at no more than eight years old, standing in their doorway early in the morning and watching them sleep. The memory is bittersweet.

I walk into Jin's old bedroom which is still used for storage and I block out all the boxes, only seeing how his room used to be, how I wish it could have stayed for a little longer. I think of how it should have been turned into a sewing room or something of the sort, when he had gone away to college. My fingers trace over the wall just underneath the windowsill and I feel, as much as see, the slight dip to the wallpaper.

Jin had been teasing me about Jinyoung, who was a handsome boy that used to live in the next street, he wouldn't stop asking me out but I was less than interested. He was a nice person, but not the person for me. I told Jin to shut up or I'd pull some of his wallpaper off. He didn't believe me. I only pulled a small piece off, a piece that was right underneath the window sill and my mother never did find out.

It hurts me. My eyes feel the familiar burn of tears fast-approaching and my throat feels the constrictive pressure that threatens to choke me.

"Hey."

And I blink them back. Suddenly, I'm no longer weak with pain. I turn around to face the voice and see Jennie standing in the doorway, looking sleepy.

"Go back to bed, Jennie," I tell her, sighing.

She ignores my words and her expression quickly turns to concern. "Are you okay?"

No, I'm still really not okay I think to myself. "Go back to bed, you slept two hours."

"I asked if you were okay, Jisoo," she repeats carefully.

I turn back around and run the pads of my fingers over the patch of white where the wallpaper once lay. "I don't want to talk," I reply quietly, carefully.

"It's just me," she points out unnecessarily.

That's the problem. I can't talk to her about this. I don't know how she would take it. I'm still not sure how I'm taking it. I don't think it's sunken in properly yet and I wonder if it's going to be one of those things that is somehow pushed to the back of your mind, only to resurface some time later and make you stop exactly what you're doing, not able to do anything but think, perhaps dwell on it.

My fingers come away from the wall and brush against something underneath the windowsill. I kneel down to look at it and it's one half of a basketball sticker Jin must have failed to peel off. For once, it doesn't comfort me. I just feel the devastating ache of the muscle inside my chest upon seeing more reminders of my family. My dead family.

I restand and face Jennie. "Why the hell didn't your parents clean the house properly?"

"What?" she asks, looking bewildered at my tone.