Cheaters ✓

Run Away

16 NOVEMBER, 2020

I was missing him. It was 2 a.m. but sleep eluded me. I got up and went and stood in the balcony. It was raining heavily. I extended my hand to catch raindrops. The wind was chilly. There were flashes of lightning and occasional sound of thunder. One of those nights when nature shares its pain with you. We were texting. I don't remember when was the last time we sexted. Our relationship had transformed. I had just texted him, asking why he wasn't with me right then.

He replied saying, 'Sometimes the lost is right, but the timing isn't. Sometimes the timing is right, but the love isn't. And sometimes both are right, but the person isn't.'

He asked me to look for my answer in this reply before saying goon night. I knew I was the other man in his life; someone who was supposed to be in the shadows. No matter how intensely I loved him, I couldn't express it. I couldn't run to his house in the rain and get him out to get drenched together. We weren't teenagers. We were married people. And it didn't matter how much we sought freedom, sought each other, sought to escape, there was always a boundary that stopped us.

The moment it came into view, we had to back off. Otherwise there would be chaos.

I sat in the balcony the whole night, smoking cigarette after cigarette until the packet was empty. I wondered how we humans could cohabit with one person at a point in time. There was no place for a third person. Thus, I couldn't live with both Jungkook and Yoongi. I had to choose between them. It was frustrating because I was sure I loved both of them. And then my mind rode another train of thought. What if Jungkook also had someone in his life whom he loved as much as he loved me? What if he too felt lonely, felt the need to share his feelings with someone else? What if it was raining in Gwangju and he was sitting by the window, wondering whether he should choose his lover or me?

There was no end to these thoughts. Finally, I took a deep breath after stubbing my last cigarette in the astray and went inside. By the time I hit the bed, I decided if tomorrow Jungkook came to me and told me he had a lover, I won't be mad at him. Whether Yoongi and I remained together was a different story. I would surely feel bad if Jungkook left me for another man, but after having experienced whatever I had with Yoongi, I would understand his decision.

How do you stop someone who has decided to belong to someone else?

In the morning, I asked Yoongi if we could meet. He said he wanted to meet me too unless rain played spoilsport. But by the time I finished work, the rain had stopped, though it was still mucky outside. I was just packing up when Yoongi called, saying he was waiting below my office. I rushed out like an excited teenager. He asked me to hop into his car. I didn't think twice. He drove us to the Seoul University campus. Draped in the afterglow of the rain, the damp campus rods and the flora surrounding them made it look like a scene out of a fairy tale.

A few minutes after we entered the campus, it started to drizzle again. Yoongi parked by the side of the road. There was nobody around. He surprised me again by taking out a flask.

'What's on your mind?' I asked.

'Just wanted to have coffee with you,' he said and took out two paper cups. I helped him pour out the hot, steaming coffee. He lowered the windows and we reclined our seats. Then he sat facing me, his legs crossed, and asked.

'How's it?' I sipped the coffee and let its warmth wash over me.

'Something like I've never had before. It's a compliment, Yoongi.' I quipped. He smiled widened.

'There are other sides to your personalities too, Taehyung. I would love to see them all.' He said.

'For that you can't be at your Park Road house at night.' I said. To be honest, I had said it in the heat of the moment. I didn't mean anything by it. But I saw him stiffen and sit up. There was a haunting silence between us which troubled me.

'Did I say anything wrong?' I asked. I was ready to apologise even though what I had said was unintentional.

He nodded and said, 'What you said was right. It was so true that I wasn't able to take it.'

After a few more silent moments, he asked, 'Do you think if we should simply continue things as they are, one day we would get bored of each other and perhaps break up?'

'Who knows what will happen in the future? The future anyway is an echo of our present decisions.' I said. I was looking ahead, at the road. From the corner of my eye, I could sense that he was looking at me. Without turning towards him, I asked, 'What are you looking at?'

'Remember, once during our initial meetings, I'd told you that I have this habit of imagining babies with strangers?'

'With ugly people. yeah. Why? Do I suddenly qualify?' Thee was a hint of amusement in my voice.

He giggled and said, 'You aren't ugly you aren't a stranger any more, so I don't want to imagine a baby with you.' He sipped his coffee and added, 'I want it for real.'

I let what he said sink in. Into my head. Into my heart. He had put my thoughts from last night into words. There was no running away from it now. He had laid it all out in the open. Everything about this relationship-its present and future-was depended on what I said at this point in time. What I decided right now. And I couldn't say it. 'Let me think.' If I still had to think then what was I doing asking him questions like: 'Why don't you spend nights with me?' Were they just fleeting thoughts or were they solid laments? My answer would decide that.

'Are you saying we should have a baby, and you will tell your husband it's his?' If my decision was going to decide our future, I had to be sure what exactly he had in mind.

'No. What I am suggesting is that we should simply disappear from our present reality. And make a different reality somewhere else,' he said.

Suddenly, it started to rain heavily, as if nature had understood my inner quandary, and the windshield slowly fogged up.