Love

Four || Drowning

I stare blankly at my ceiling. It is well past midnight, far too late for me to try getting to sleep. 

I can't stop thinking. I'm laying on my bed, thinking, drowning. And I'm not even in water. 

My chest is tight and I can't stop thinking about her. Y/n. She won't leave my mind. Even when I'm not thinking about her outright, she's always there. In the back of my mind or in the front of my mind, she won't get out of my mind. 

I look over to my alarm clock with a sigh. It's only been two minutes since I last checked the time. I thought it had at least been thirty. 

So I rise from my bed with a sigh and redress myself. I dress and collect my dirty clothes, placing them into a bag. I leave my apartment, lock the door, tread heavily down the stairs, and through the streets. I stop at a run down, well lit, 24-hour public laundromat. When I pull open the door, the bell rings and startles the attendant behind the counter from his light sleep. I nod in a bow at him and he nods back and returns to sleepily counting coins on the counter. 

I sigh as I drop my bag of clothes in front of a washer and pull it open. I shove the clothes into the machine, along with some laundry detergent and coins to start it. I sit on a bench at the end of the row and pull out my phone. It's moments like these I hate when my apartment complex doesn't have a laundry room or allow personal machines. 

The bell rings again and I yawn. A sudden loud crash near the counter jerks my attention. My brow furrows in confusion and I stand to walk to the front as the attendant rushes to the door. 

"Are you alright, miss?" he asks. The woman coming in must've tripped and fallen on the door step. 

"Yes, thank you. I'm okay." 

I freeze when I hear the voice. Unbelievable. I haven't seen her in nearly two weeks. 

She stands and we make eye contact. Her eyes widen slightly at the sight of me. As I lift my hand to wave to her, she flips her gaze away from mine and she walks into a different row of machines far away from mine. I close my eyes tightly and look down at the floor. The last time we spoke was when I told her to go away during the karaoke party. I offended her. She was just trying to be nice to me. I'm a jerk. 

I return to my bench and sit again, removing my phone from my pocket again. She sits on the bench at the end of her row and sighs. I glance over at her as she hides her fists in the pockets of her oversized jacket. It must be Chan-woo's. I look away again and feel my jaw clench. 

"How are you, Mr. Park?" she says. 

I turn to face her and she turns to face me. 

"You're up pretty late." 

I smile tightly at her, but it doesn't reach my eyes. "So are you," I say. "Do you live around here?" 

"My building is at the end of the block." 

I nod and look away again. I hide my own fists in my sweatshirt pocket. I try to toss my hood off of my head and instead bang my head on the painted brick wall behind me. With a quiet groan, I expose my hand again and cradle the forming bruise on my skull. 

"You okay?" 

I glance at her quickly and give her a shallow nod. 

She sighs and rests her head, gently, on the wall. 

"I'm sorry," she blurts. 

I look a her again, confused and slightly disoriented from hitting my head. "Wha—"

"I can't help but feel like I've offended you somehow. At the karaoke party, maybe? Maybe before then?" 

"I—"

"Chan-woo says the same thing. We talk about it sometimes. He says always considered you a close friend but that you've pushed him away. Is it because of me? Did I do something to make you mad at him?" 

Is she stupid? Does she really have no idea? "Chan-woo and I have never been close. The only reason he knew my name is because everyone at work knows my name. Somehow? I have no friends. I didn't even know Chan-woo's name until the company dinner." I scoff lightly and rest my head on the wall again. Ouch. "I don't know what stories he's been telling you." 

Her head snaps over to me. Her beautiful eyes are tainted with an emotion I don't know. Her beautiful lips purse tightly closed over her teeth. I have to look away from them. The fact that lips as beautiful as her have been tainted by lips that aren't mine forces my gaze away from her practically flawless face. 

"That doesn't explain why you don't talk to me. Or to him. You know us both now. I thought you came to the karaoke party because you were friends with us." 

I'm silent. I don't know what to say. 

"I'm sorry," I tell her. It's easier to just be honest. I don't really know if I'm being honest or lying. "There isn't a reason." I look at her again and give her a small smile. "I don't do very well around people. I don't get along with others very easily. It's good that I work alone at a desk every day. People never tried to get to know me in my life, so I stopped trying to get to know them, too. That's why I'm just 'Park' at work. Nobody knows 'Jimin.'"

She's silent this time. I hear her stand and her footsteps grow slightly louder as she nears me. I look up at her as she sticks a hand in my face. 

"I'm Y/n. I don't believe we've met properly. I'd like to get to know you better." 

I smile, genuinely this time, as I take her hand in mine for a light shake. "I'm Jimin. It's nice to officially meet you." 

She sits on the opposite side of my bench. There's a small amount of distance between us. Friendly, but still a little awkward. We make eye contact and it's awkward, but it isn't tense. She smiles and I can return it effortlessly. The silence there is quiet, but it isn't awkward. It's simply quiet. 

My heart shifts when I'm looking into her eyes. I can feel the change. There's something behind them that I can't identify, probably because I don't know her very well, but I get lost in that something. Her eyes are like the rain; they wash away my thoughts, worries, and my newfound hate for Chan-woo and replace them all with an incomparable freshness, a feeling of new life. 

I don't dare look away from her eyes at the other aspects of her face, but I can see her hair which falls from her head like waves of an ocean. Whether it's short or long, curly or straight, black or blonde, pulled up or set free, I don't really notice or care in that moment. I don't care at all. Her hair itself is a freeing sight, it is as alive as waves and the flow of it tosses me in a rhythm as her eyes wash me clean. 

Her physical features are still nothing compared to her self. She pushed me out of my comfort zone, has pushed me back into my love of singing, pushed me to become vulnerable with her, pushes me to be comfortable with her. Her soul is the ocean, vast and deep, always changing yet always the same. She is the ocean, pushing, pulling, washing, familiar but always different. 

She is the ocean. 

And it's safe to say I'm drowning in her. 

I don't think I mind it at all. 

A/N

Wooow this too a while to write out lol. I liked it a lot, honestly I fangirled a couple times kshfaklsd. 

I'm also really sorry my gifs aren't working :/ I downloaded them to my photos and they worked fine when I opened them, but when I started using them for the WP, they stopped working >:( If anyone can enlighten me, please help. 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Words: 1347