One-Way Ticket | Jeon Jungkook

seven

"Great! It was great." I replied as cheerfully as I possible could, as I dreadfully spun back on my heal to face her.
"What happened to your arm?" She asked as she saw my cast, coming up beside me. I blinked at her for a second, mind going blank. I was scrambling for an explanation that didn't involve Jungkook, which in hindsight seemed like the easiest thing ever, but in the moment, it was always way more stressful. Like an argument, it was always 5 hours later in the shower, that I came up with every single good comeback I could have said. But this wasn't 5 hours later, so I just went with:
"Um, I just fell. You know me... always falling," Yeah, real slick Y/n. I felt like putting my fist in my mouth to muffle my internal guttural screams.

"Okayyy." She dragged it out and sent me a weird look, looking me up and down. "So, you connected with your roots and ate a lot of sushi or something?" She asked with her foxy, sly smile. My own smile turned more into a frozen grimace as I stared at her and revealed at her words. "Isn't that what you said?" She said and tapped her chin thoughtfully with a petty pout, pretending that she was actually thinking about it, not just shitting bullshit.

I desperatly cleared my throat. "That's Japanese food, I'm from Korea, but I mean I do like sushi-"
"Woah, how'd you get in there? Isn't it like super closed off and monitored?"
"S-South Korea. You can't really just...you know..." I said and tried gesturing with my hands to explain. It didn't end well, and she looked at me as if I was stupid. This was getting harder and harder, I felt like hitting my head against a tree. Multiple times.
"Yeah... yeah whatever, I'll see you tomorrow at school I guess." She huffed and trailed off. Thankfully. See why I was so excited for Seoul?
I half considered telling her about Jungkook just to shit her in the face, but that was off limits. I wasn't going to tell a single person about me and Jungkook.

A walk helped, it cleared my mind a bit so I could return recharged and capable of emptying my luggage and preparing for school. A lot of time went by like that. I found myself missing the euphoria, excitement, and adrenaline rush of the roller coaster, but I pushed through it via walks, excessive binging dramas, practicing my acting, preparing for exams, working at the diner, and looking at edits of Jungkook. Edits of when he sang Pied Piper and he looked at me. I strongly recalled the intense, dark, and curious look in his eyes, but through edits I could relive our moment thousand times. And I think that after every single video and picture of Jungkook, I found myself falling just a little in love with him time after time again.

◦◦,'°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°',◦◦

And then Boy With Luv and Map of the soul: Persona was released and it was hell all over again. At home I could at least control how much BTS content I consumed, (to some extent), but Boy With Luv was an instant hit, and it played almost 24/7 on the radio. I couldn't escape it at the diner, and believe me- I loved the song, but the missing of him was too great. From time to time I could still feel the phantom touch of his lips against mine lingering. It felt silly hanging onto something that was so long ago and at this point probably just a fantasy. I hugged Cooky tightly in my sleep every single night, stupid silent tears slipping down my cheeks, leaving wet traces of what had been.

And to make matters worse. We hadn't texted even once. He hadn't taken the initiative to contact me, and I hadn't done so either. I feared he didn't want me to contact him because there was no word from him and because of the way he had acted on the last night. Find me when you come back- not text me when you get home. Maybe I was overthinking, maybe I wasn't, but I probably was. Who was I to say?
I feared the rejection I might've faced had he not responded to my text or not put effort into it. Because I would put effort into it, I really would do that for him. And I was afraid that he wouldn't do so back.