Jaemin the Icy Prince on Campus - Na Jaemin NCT

28. Pale Shadows of A Forgotten Time

I am haunted by phrases today.

Two, to be precise.

Each is strangely similar. Each has two words and seven letters. 

The first is: I'm sorry. 

The second: It's over.

Each cuts me open to the core. Each leaves me with ungodly pain. Each leaves me sobbing in the dark.

It is a gray, heavy day today. I am weighted down by lethargy. I want to crawl into a black, black hole, fathoms deep, I want to sink inside and sleep forever; I want to curl up in my bed, and block out my pain and lose myself in dreams.

But I can't.

Human beings are creatures of habit; even in our darkest hour, we still go through the motions - we breathe, we shower, we eat, we live. 

But the heaviness persists. 

I sit at my table, and stare at the colourless sky. I pick up my pen. I start to write.

My fingers are slabs of concrete, I am breathing bricks. My heart is a stone.

The doorbell is ringing. 

My parents are out.

I wonder who it is? It is only 10 am. I am feeling shitty. My hair is a mess. My eyes are swollen. My mouth stinks, post-vomit.

Go away, whoever you are.

I shall stare at the wall, and wait for the ringing to stop.

Ten minutes have passed. The doorbell is still ringing.

I am dragging myself out of this chair.

Damn you, whoever you are.

Back again. An hour later.

You wouldn't believe who it was at the door! - and just to make things clear, the YOU I am writing to is not Jaemin, but myself. Future me, reading these words one fine day in the unknown, uncertain future, words written by Present Me in a haze of fire and grief - you must understand that I vacillate wildly between highs and lows at different times of the day.

So where was I? 

Ah, the doorbell!

I flung open the front door, and stormed savagely to the gate. 

"Hey, Mina. Long time no see."

Omg. 

It was Leean.

He was standing there, outside my gate, smiling at me, and quite literally, took my breath away.

"Leean." I gasped, sucking in air. "Why - how - ?"

"If you'd let me in, I'll explain," he said, laughing. "As you can see, I'm getting a bit wet." He pointed ruefully to the light mist of rain.

Shit. I had been so shocked, staring at him open-mouthed, I hadn't even realised that it was raining.

"Omg. I'm so sorry. Of course." I fumbled with the digits on the padlock, and the gate swung open.

He stood in the doorway, shaking water droplets from his hair; he was almost twenty now, like Jaemin, very fair and handsome, his shoulders broader, his body stronger. But his eyes were the same; they had the same softness, the same honesty in them when he looked at me, and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was still in love with me. Some things never change. That's just the way life is. He is like Jaemin and me; once we love, it is for keeps.