TO BE LOVED / poetry

XV

LAYERS TO THIS THING (CALLED LOVE) | 07.02.2020

Act II, Scene V.

[Enter Namjoon and Seokjin.]

(Over the phone, conversation rising to a rapid fall, we are presented with unfinished storyboards and a dialogue about the pains of love.)

NAMJOON: You said it's easy, right? Now? The way you guys are?

SEOKJIN (voice shaking a little): Yeah. That's why I'm so fucking ...petrified, hyung, of this whole thing breaking apart. I don't want it to be easy until it's not, y'know?

NAMJOON (after a slight pause): Mhm. I do.

SEOKJIN: And I know he's not the type to, like, hold it against me. Seok won't hate me. (Here, he mutters to himself, as if to convince his own conscience.) He won't.

NAMJOON (gently): So why not tell him how you feel?

SEOKJIN (with a start, as if shaken by the thought): But what if he starts becoming distant? What if — No, I can't. I can't, hyung, what if it turns out all wrong?

NAMJOON: It'll only be weird if you make it weird, Seokjin-hyung.

SEOKJIN: That's easy to say, Joon-ah. But it's not though, is it? If I get turned down, in — in the end? Seok won't hold anything against me, but what if he feels guilty? What if he's scared of, I don't know, of encouraging my feelings further, so he draws away from me? What if he keeps trying to be... (almost spitting out the next word) friends — but I don't want him to? Because I don't. God, I don't want to. What if I'm so hurt, I'm so hurt that I just —... push?

NAMJOON (switches to a more serious tone, drops honorifics): Seokjin-ah. Calm down, calm down for a moment —

SEOKJIN (in a rush): Shit, my stomach's warm again. Oh God. Oh fuck, where are my pills —

NAMJOON: Seokjin-ah. Hey — hey. Seokjin-ah, listen to my voice.

SEOKJIN: Yeah— yeah, okay. I'm listening. I'll...okay, hang on, wait—

[Seokjin rummages around his drawer while Namjoon lapses into concerned silence. The bottle of pills, wedged in between notebooks, is procured. Seokjin taps a pill onto his palm and into his mouth, swallowing without water.]

SEOKJIN (a little calmer, trying to get it together): Okay. I'm here, sorry for overacting, Joon-ah.

NAMJOON: You didn't. You didn't, you're alright, it's all good. But can I... (a short pause, as if mulling over how to phrase the words) Let me ask you, hyung: do you love Hoseok?

SEOKJIN: ...am I in love, you mean?

NAMJOON: No. Not just — not just in love. People tend to think of love as being in love. Like, like it's just something you fall into, then fall out of. But it's— it's really not that easy, is it? It's not some kind of, say, a push and pull door, or this quick movement, like when you accidentally twist a leg and go tumbling, or whatever. It's really, really...slow.

SEOKJIN (knitting his brows): Slow?

NAMJOON: Yeah. Like...there's this whole preconceived notion of people rushing headfirst into love, right? Like in the movies? But, I don't know, I mean...If you really just — think about it. Some people only love once in their lives, and that's it for them, there's no one else. And then some others have many; multiple people all throughout their lives, maybe — it could be at the same time or apart, and they're lucky, too. They get to love and be loved again, and again, and again. But some others don't, and these are the ones who don't feel any sort of...attraction? They don't really get interested by the idea of it, whether sexual or physical and — and of course this is fine, because love is more than just being in love.

SEOKJIN (softly, as if scared if he speaks louder Namjoon will stop speaking): What do you mean, Namjoon-ah?

NAMJOON (tone slightly more wistful): Well, you see. I think... I think love is the pure act of being alive. It is staying alive, with all this...ferocity and declaration, and continuing even after being torn apart. I think we've all romanticized love so much that we assign it a sort of, almost like a hierarchy? With romance at the very top above all others, of course. It's in all the movies and books and songs, but... I think you can love someone even if you're not in love with them. I think you can keep loving them even when you're in love with someone else, too. There's extraordinarily complicated, super difficult layers to this thing. So...don't worry, Seokjin-ah. Really. If you love Hoseok, and he genuinely loves you too, you won't lose him. Not really. Not in the way that matters.

(Overhead, a bird flies by outside Seokjin's window. The phone cradled to his ear feels far, far away. He stares at the sky, stares at the blue walls of his bedroom. He hears Namjoon's breathing on the other side, but doesn't rush to fill in the quiet. A small understanding, the size of a bloodied fist, starts to grab hold of his chest, his fourth rib, his very gut.)

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A/N: you cannot control your feelings, but you can let yourself feel them. there are layers to this thing, but for each you peel back, you are closer to the core of it, to the genuine feeling of loving and being loved in return, so keep going. keep feeling, openly, bravely, with admission and without restriction. ❤️