All Roads Lead to Us (Street Racers #1)

12: Jungkook

When I carry Yeeun up the stairs to her apartment, she sleeps with her head on my shoulder. I don't have the heart to wake her up after that day, and I don't have mental strength to wake her up and act like I don't care about her again. It's easier when she is asleep so I put extra effort into finding her keys and bringing her to her bed.

Today feels like a dream, one I could stay in for days.

As I put her on the queen sized bed, the place the same as I remember, I know I should leave. I should put a blanket over her, send her a text to read the next morning that I will drop off her keys before work, and leave. I should, but I can't move towards the door.

With a heavy heart, I step closer and gently rest on the spot next to her. We have spent hours in this bed, binge-watching Fast & Furious, Pirates of Caribbean and Mission: Impossible, eating Spanish or American food. I lay on the side, facing her. She's so beautiful.

"You're asleep, yeah?" She doesn't flinch when I caress her cheek, barely touching. Her breathing is steady, lips pursed. She is definitely asleep. She couldn't pretend to be a sleep to save her life. 

As I speak in a whisper not to wake her up, my eyes sting. "Don't get hurt, Yeeun. I don't know what I'd do if you got hurt." I push her hair back, gulping. "I just wanna keep you safe. I'm so sorry if I can't do that. Or if I'm the one hurting you. I don't know what I'm doing anymore." I grit my teeth, waiting out the urge to wail. "I love you so much. I'm so sorry."

I don't want this day to end, so I stay for as long as I can keep my eyes open. I only hold her hand as I rest next to her, wishing I have never fell in love with her. Because not having Yeeun at all is worse than anything I have ever experienced.

Bedroom is the only room Yeeun always kept tidy. Now, one spot is a total mess, but I only notice on my way out. Sheets of paper, white and colorful, crumbled and flat, scattered under a chest of drawers. Pens, pencils, a ruler, an old necklace she won once in an arcade game. The last one brings a smile to my face, and when I am sure I will leave the room with it, something else knocks it off, making me freeze.

Not like going through her things now, when we are nothing, is as acceptable as when we were friends, but I find myself crouching in front of a pile of papers before I can turn around, leave and save myself some unnecessary pain.

When we were nine, one of the teachers gave us a bunch of art kits kids were safe to play with, and said 'use it to make a gift for someone you really love'. Obviously, we made gifts for each other. Two beaded bracelets. The one I gave her had beads in every color and a flower pendant. Mine was yellow and black, and hanged around the rare view mirror in my car for as long as I have been driving. She never stopped wearing hers.

Now, mine is in a never used ashtray behind the gear shift. Hers is in pieces, on the floor, broken.

It only hurts a bit, until I realize what the rainbow beads are laying on.

On the same day, after exchanging the bracelets, we wrote a promise.

Jungkook and Yeeun promise to be best friends forever, everywhere, no matter what, forever and always, and we will always be together.

It was written and signed with a red, broken crayon, and the paper itself wasn't as important as why we wrote it in the first place. Because when we were nine, we were already inseparable. Year by year, as we grew up together, we have only become closer. 

This stupid piece of paper might have been written fifteen years ago and is just a piece of paper with words on it. I shouldn't be crying over a fifteen years old paper she tore into pieces, or over the beaded bracelet she took off and cut in half.

And maybe I am not crying over any of those, but over a visual proof that I have brought us here, broken a promise that I made not four months ago, but fifteen years ago. Or even twenty years ago, when four-year-old Yeeun asked me if "I am going to be her b-f-f" and, when I looked at her confused, said "best friend forever".

The paper could be taped back together, the bracelet can be put back together, but we can't. It's my fault that we don't have each other anymore, and will never have each other again.