Jisung clears his throat again as I'm trying to keep a sob from falling out of my lips. "I thought I wouldn't see you again."
"It's not like you made any effort to change that, Jisung. Your parents moving back here was probably a coincidence, wasn't it?" my throat is sore, voice raspy from the crying. I promised myself I wouldn't talk to him, but his words irtitate me.
He speaks as if he didn't have a choice but to cut all contact with me.
Jisung doesn't utter a word for a few seconds. I'm still hiding under pillows and bedcovers, so I snake my head out to breathe. I don't turn my head to look up beside me, just seeing his legs through the corner of my eye is more than fine.
"I'm sorry. I just wanted you to stop hurting."
His voice is a whisper, a shaky one. His words don't make any sense to me. "You basically did the opposite thing."
He chuckles, dry and tired. It wasn't a joke, a punchline or something to lighten up the mood. It is the truth, my truth. "I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing. You're five years late."
He smiles and looks at me, I feel his eyes linger on my face. He might stare a hole through it. With a sigh, he does something I'm not expecting at all: falls onto his back on the bed, arched in the way my body bumps beneath him.
"You're as stubborn as ever." Jisung laughs. His hand finds my hair and his fingers get tangled in the black strands of it, massaging my scalp how I used to love when we were kids.
My body has missed this feeling, his feeling, that's the only explanation I have to the way it relaxes with his warmth that stinged just a few days ago.
"Can I explain my side of the story?" he sais. "Maybe that way I'll be less of a heartless asshole and more of a cute idiot in your messy mind."
I huff and shake violently to throw him off of me. "It's not messy, it's organized in my own way."
My eyes are still puffy from before, but I don't pay them any mind. I tell Jisung that he can explain whatever he has to explain.
"I thought I was holding you back." he starts. He's laying next to me on the bed. We've both shifted to look at each other and I'm still figuring out how his stare feels on me. "You were always taking care of everyone, taking care of me. Too busy to focus on yourself. I admired that part of you because it meant that you'd always be my anchor in a storm."
I frown a little at the memories that flood inside my head. The amount of love I had for him leaves me breathless for a second.
"When they adopted me, I saw that I was moving really far away."
"Enough to cut contact with me completely?" I half-joke.
Jisung's face is seriously and I note that now isn't the time to be sarcastic. "I moved to Malaysia, Minho." silence falls upon us. He really did move far away from me, from our little family. "I started thinking how our relationship would be. I started seeing you glued to the phone, still taking care of everyone but yourself as you waited for a stupid call so we could talk. I didn't want that for you, I just wanted to let you grow to be your own person, to have your own life that didn't consist on waiting until I came back.
I thought I needed to let you go to let you grow."
He pauses to breathe, to wipe the silent tear that has left his eye. I'm not looking at him anymore.
"You were all I had, Jisung." is my answer. "Was it that hard to call me? Just to explain this over the phone. Just to let me know you were okay, happy, alive and not dead in a ditch like my mother."
His intentions were good but the execution had painful consequences. I was left alone again. He knew how much I hated to be alone.
He's crying now, real tears that stain his cheeks. I stand up and offer my hand. "I'm glad you didn't hate me. All these years I really thought that I was truly unlovable."
I pull his shaky body into a hug. He's crying a lot, with painful sobs that pierce my ears.
"Do you forgive me?" he asks.
I'm not sure if I can go back to how we were, but now forgiving him doesn't sound that scary. With a careful nod, I tell him I do. He squeezes me tighter.
"Let's make something to eat, I'm starving."
I let go of Jisung's body, but there's a smile on my lips to reassure him. "Can I use the bathroom?"
I show him the way, but when I'm about to leave he pulls my arm and forces me to sit on the edge of the bath. He takes a towel from one of the shelves and soaks it in warm water, then starts slowly cleaning my face from the sticky trails the tears left on my face.
К сожалению, это изображение не соответствует нашим правилам. Чтобы продолжить публикацию, пожалуйста, удалите изображение или загрузите другое.
