Annie
Days on Trial: 69
Of all the ways Jungkook and I had interacted with one another, not once had things ever been awkward. There had always been an ease between us, like that of vaseline on a creaky door hinge, an adroitness not shared with anyone else. To put it simply, we just worked.
Yet as he hurriedly entered my flat, closing the door behind him, things felt precarious.
Hair damp, small beads pooling at the ends, he'd been caught in the downpour as he ran from his car into my apartment block. Sharp and unbloated, his jaw shuffled ever so slightly, moved by his anxious disposition. It didn't seem as if he'd been eating well, small dark circles underneath his dehydrated eyes.
My curtains had been pulled shut, blocking out the mid-afternoon storm, keeping me contained in my cosy flat, lit only by lamps and never the main light. In the ambience, his skin looked warm, like fresh honey on steaming banana pancakes.
"Sit," I implored, nodding towards the velvet green of my sofa, jewel toned and tufted. Shaking off his jacket, laying it over the back of the couch, he took his spot, and it took me more willpower than I would have liked to have admitted to prevent myself from curling up next to him.
"Are you not going to sit?" He read my mind, as I distanced myself from him, perching on the edge of my rolled-wing armchair. It was by the far wall, across from the sofa, of which I had spent hours on, staring at the canvas hung above the chair.
He'd only just noticed it, the carefully crafted sunset that held a place in both of our hearts now taking pride of place in my living room.
Every morning, I woke, and I checked it over; once, twice, three times. I looked for the colours and found them like crossword word clues, filling in the blanks of the void emotions in my heart.
They were all there. Even gold.
And it pissed me off.
"You're not here to hang out," I reminded him, knowing that being physically close was his way of feeling connected to me. I didn't want to give him the honour. "You're here to explain yourself and go."
"Sure, sorry," he mumbled, eyes dropping to his feet uncomfortably.
Seeing him like this, dejected and forlorn, ate away at me.
But he'd made a conscious series of choices which had eaten away at me first.
I felt grey.
"So? What happened?"
I'd heard it all from Chloe already, but I wanted to hear him speak it into existence; I wanted him to acknowledge what he'd done while looking at me, knowing that his choices had hurt me.
And speak it, he did. His gaze was unwavering, except for when he paused slightly, stringing words together in his head. There was a conscious effort from him to be crystal clear in his words, no mincing, no leaving things up to ambiguity. His claims matched Chloe's word for word.
Trust wasn't an issue here. It was his cowardness in pursuit of his colours that had caused chaos.
"I was scared, Annie," he admitted tremulously. "I didn't know that colours could just go like that."
Nor did I. The way he saw things wasn't like anyone else I had ever known.
"I was scared too," I blurted, having been silent throughout his entire monologue. It wasn't fair that he got to turn this into a pity parade. "Did you ever stop for a second and consider how I would have felt throughout all of this?"
