I stormed out of the apartment I once called home - one I would now have to part with. My blood was boiling, churning within my veins with no place to escape. I should have known. I should have understood that allowing love into my life would cause nothing but destruction. How can such a beautiful feeling turn so bitter, so fast? How can it tear someone apart as quickly as it puts them back together?
Foolish, is what I am. Thinking that such an amazing man would ever look at me twice. A man that, before me, had been tied to two other men. Men whom he had homes with, lives, stories, anecdotes. I knew from the darkest parts of my heart that it was impossible. But I wanted to permit myself selfishness, perhaps even happiness if only temporary. I left all the doubts tied down in the dark, and soon even that part of me caved. Thirsty for any sort of love.
He could have told me. It was not necessary to come back to our home, and watch it all happen. I did not need to be shown, when words could have sufficed. The sight did not make me angry, it was the weakness and vulnerability that came with it all. How my eyes instantly watered at the scene unfolding before me, crystalline substances crawling down my cheeks in an attempt to reach my heart. Not that someone with a heart so bitter deserved to watch me cry, not that I expected anything but this, but the realization of the upcoming loneliness that would surely come was enough to bring me to my knees.
Words met me as my presence was acknowledged. "You thought he would ever truly be satisfied with someone as mediocre as you? So pathetic. You can leave now." One of them had cackled, still hanging off of him, nudging at the other perpetrator just to watch me cry. My boyfriend - ex, looked down in shame.
"That is quite hilarious of you to stay, considering I was his first choice after he dumped you both. Do you truly think what he did was not premeditated? That he wasn't at the very least into me as he fucked you both? Maybe you should be ashamed. The only way you can get someone to even look at you is when you drop your clothes." With one last stare at the debauched individuals in my once home, I walked away. The door slam was the only sound in the empty hallway.
The moment the cold greeted me, was when the reality of it all slapped me in the face. The anger faded, the mask dropped, and it all came crashing down. I was wearing no more than a thin jacket, prepared to make myself warm in my home after a long day of work. With the person I thought loved me. What a joke. My initial reaction was to visit my comfort place, a small bakery tucked into a corner street. It had been there since I took my first breath, and hopefully will be there when I take my last. It was the place where I met Jeon Jungkook for the first time. Back when I was just two and he was one, at a playdate with our parents. Parents who had been friends since similar ages, had grown together and had the fortune of bringing their offspring into the world during a similar time frame.
As though we were in a carefully crafted book meant for only the best romance, we grew to fall in love. To experience all our firsts together, without the feeling of unfulfillment other couples can experience. Nothing made us happier than being together. Until the moment my other half went to study abroad, with the promise one day he would come back to love me twice as much. I did not take the promise, it felt unfair at that moment. It felt like the world was praying against us, and I refused to let distance be what caved us in. So I bid him farewell, and kissed him at the airport one last time. And there went twenty years of knowing someone more than you know yourself. Of being able to find them in pitch dark with just a brush of hands.
So, with tears still streaming down, frozen slightly by the blatant cold, I made my way to Stigma. I was greeted by the delicious smell of baking bread, jelly-filled pastries, and chocolate muffins. There were lights tracing the ceiling that reflected the glass on every table, as captivating as I remembered. And with the feeling of familiarity embracing me, all the tension in my body left at once. Heading to the table I never abandoned, regardless of how much it hurt at the beginning - I calmed more and more. Confident in it being empty, since it was near the back. It kept us safe from the world, we used to say. Kept wandering eyes away, made sure our love was just meant for the other. The passion that ran through our irises, and manifested in the blush of our cheeks, or the wandering hands on the table when we just needed to be that much closer. Just remembering it all made the newly-inflicted wound sting just a bit more. There was nothing I could now but remember how something so beautiful was taken from me, and no replacements would suffice.
