TIME AFTER TIME ; jjk

25

Chapter 25

PARK SOOHYUN

I was in a dire need of something that I could lean my body on, my knees unstable and feeble and afraid to take a few steps. But I would make my friends worry and they would have to ask me what it was about. I didn't even have answers to give.

"Is everything okay?" Jungkook asked.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Taehyung enunciated carefully, concern written on his face. 

Shaking my head weakly, I answered with a faint voice, "No." A sense of foreboding started to gnaw at my fingertips, my head occupied with several thoughts I couldn't contain at once, scared that they might have been wordlessly loud enough to expose me. They didn't have to know.

Taehyung nodded. Like he understood it. Like he didn't need more to know what was happening. The way I felt was evidently sitting on my face. "Okay. We probably should go now." 

I could feel Jungkook's gaze on me when I found the strength to turn away and walk to my car, carrying my stuff, the heaviness of it a lot more sensed. My confusion and thoughts filled in the spaces inside and I was worried they would trap me in a way I might have never predicted. I didn't know what to do with them so I tried my best to focus on driving, temporarily detaching from fear, or so I convinced myself. Jungkook's car led the way when we returned to Seoul and the entire drive was an unnerving four hours of not knowing what to feel, how I should react.

I only knew a portion of the truth. Would I choose to trust the words of someone I didn't know over my boyfriend who might have been completely clueless of this? I had no idea what the truth even was at all. What everything could possibly mean. What to believe. Because I trusted Namjoon enough that even if I could dig up some signs that might verify he could have lied to me (and I might have shrugged them off), I was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

I never had experiences of conflict in romantic relationships as I had never been with someone before, and I could handle troubles with other kinds of relationships, but this, I was new to this kind, and I didn't quite know how I should make a move, and it was awful to think that if I stepped on the wrong line, the path for us wouldn't just be the same.

This was just a patch we had to get over with. Hopefully.

And as much as the unresolved mishmash of questions were killing me, I needed to deal with it as calmly as possible. If this had happened several months ago, I would have completely gone berserk even without seeing the whole picture. But I had learned the hard way that things could get worse and awkward if I'd handle it with a meltdown over a much needed communication.

There was a huge possibility that the woman was telling the truth. She had Namjoon's phone with her all day. She'd been the one reading my messages and apparently, she'd been holding back herself. From what exactly? Letting me know that I was exposed? That I'd been caught cheating on her with her husband? I shuddered at the idea which I had never imagined and wanted myself to be in the role of a mistress.

I needed to hear Namjoon say that the woman was lying for my peace. And if it happened to be true–

I pushed it out of my head. Namjoon knew he was my first boyfriend. Why would you do this to me? He wouldn't intentionally do anything that would put us in trouble. Something that would make me lose trust in him.

When I arrived back at my apartment, Taehyung and Jungkook told me I could call either of them if I liked. The questions were deafening in my mind. I spent the next two hours reassuring myself that tomorrow would be anything but bad like the other days, anticipating for Namjoon to find a way to reach me out, hoping that the sound of his calming voice would clear my doubts. My sighs later punctuated the night.