Dead By Dawn

8 - Run

“I miss my kids,” he sighed.

    Your eyes widened. Well that’s one way to break the silence...

    “You had kids?”

    His eyes closed as the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile. A light chuckle escaped his lips.

    “Yeah, they were the funniest bunch I’ve ever known.” The smile he carried slowly turned to a small frown, “I just hope they didn’t get caught in all of this. This is no place for children.”

    Your eyes fell to the mug in your hand. The emptiness of it seemed to reflect the melancholic air that lingered the longer you stayed in your thoughts.

    “Were you split up from your wife or girlfriend? How come you don’t know what happened?”

    His head whipped around to look at you. His confused gaze rested on your side profile. He brightly laughed when it clicked for him.

    “Ah, no!” He giggled, “I was a Kindergarten teacher. I considered them ‘my kids.’”

    You felt heat rush to your cheeks. Although it felt nice in comparison to the freezing temperatures, you were embarrassed. He didn’t mean biological kids.

    “Oh, that makes sense.”

    The man hummed. Silence took over once again.

    “Namjoon,” you spoke. “What happened to you?”

    You turned to make eye contact with him. His brows furrowed, silently asking you what you meant by that.

    “I mean, why didn’t you contact me or Hobi? You completely dropped off the face of the earth right before we were supposed to go to High School together. Hoseok had to comfort me for a long time so I didn’t blame myself for why you left.”

    Namjoon seemed almost uncomfortable with your question.

    “Ah! Sorry, don’t answer that if you don’t feel like it,” you trailed off.

He broke eye contact with you, focusing on something ahead of him. His palms lightly rubbed against the fabric of his sweatpants. He took a long breath in before heavily breathing out, the loud sigh ringing in the air. Namjoon licked his lips trying to will himself to speak up again.

    “There were a few reasons,” you leaned towards him a bit. “My mom got a job in Ilsan again, while my dad was promoted to a bigger office in main Seoul. We had to move as soon as possible. We somehow ended up in the same home I lived in before we moved to Gwangju.”

Namjoon smiled at the memory of his first childhood home.

    “The reason why I didn’t contact you or Hoseok was because I couldn’t. My parents didn’t approve of you guys. I’m not really sure why though. They always seemed happy when you were around, but once you left, they looked like they were offended by your presence. But they got rid of any way I could talk to you, including all of the letters I wrote to you. For the longest time, I wondered why you guys never sent me anything back,” he let out a forced chuckle, a sad smirk gracing his features. “I figured out why right before I moved out for college. My mom snuck out of the house after I had gone to mail the letters and collected them.”

    “Did she tell you?”

    Namjoon shook his head.

    “No, I found a box full of the letters in my parent’s room. I was just lucky they didn’t make kindling out of them for our firepit. I took them with me, but by that time I wasn’t sure if you lived in the same place. Plus I gave up after a year of trying to write to you and Hoseok.”