ILL HEARTS

14

Eunbi ~ April 17, 2019

Be too much around me. Too much of you would never be enough.

Too much of you would never be enough.

Too much of you would never be enough.

I wanted to bang my head against the concrete wall. It was tattooed in front of my eyes. I had a little Jungkook in my head screaming this over and over again. And the way he looked at me, the way he called me Pearls because I reminded him of Pearl the Octopus and then asked for a tattoo sketch of an octopus, the way we danced in the goddamn rain.

We danced in the rain.

He saw me almost half naked.

He saw my tattoos.

It was too much to handle in one afternoon. I was a mess, paddling in the ocean of my feelings. All of them, all at once. I was beginning to feel a little bit too giggly around Jungkook. Comfortable and safe, and so powerful. I worried it was his actions that got me feeling this way. But when he was by my side, without doing anything, nothing changed. The stillness and silence with him were the most telling, and meant as much as his words and actions.

I thought we were friends. I thought we would stay friends. Maybe I was far from the truth. The idea of growing it even further, and the possibility of our past lingering behind, was keeping me up at night. But maybe I was just a coward, and taking it further was as pleasant as turning enemies into friends. There was no past lingering now, why would it suddenly come into the scene?

I wanted him closer. I wanted to spend time with him, and get to know him more and more. I wanted whatever was going on to go further. He was making me feel special. After years of treating myself like air, he made smallest things about me matter.

I knew it would be tense that day, after everything that happened the previous afternoon, but I wanted to see him already, more than ever before. He became comfortable to be around, yet our growing bond made it challenging to some extent.

I walked to one of the tables to wait for Jungkook, and get lost in my thoughts as I did, but a moment of peaceful overthinking wasn't in the stars for me that morning.

"Hey, Jung Eunbi!"

I looked to the right, where one of the guys from my group, Eunwoo, strode towards me, waving a paper in the air. I wrote his essays. He seemed so poor and dumb, and always cried about how his parents would kick him out if he failed, that I couldn't say 'no' to him. I wrote all of the English and psychology essays for him.

I pulled the strap of my bag over my shoulder and stood up. "Yeah?"

He slammed the paper onto the table as soon as he stopped. His eyes wide and burning, and it couldn't lead anywhere good. "What the fuck is that?"

"Your... essay?"

"With what fucking mark?" He was so aggressive that looking down at the paper took me a moment. "Looks like it's failed, isn't it?"

"W-well, yeah," I mumbled. I hated being yelled at. It should have been easy to stand up for myself. Especially in this situation. I wrote all those essays for him, and he never even thanked me. Twice, at the beginning, then he didn't bother. But I kept writing them like a fool, thinking he was going to get lost if I didn't help him.

"Wasn't it supposed to be the highest marked fucking essay?" he growled, and I scooted back, avoiding looking into his eyes, as I fiddled with the edge of my sweater. He seemed like a guy who would slap me in the middle of the hall, without caring if someone saw.