Many minutes later, Heiran and Dohyeok walked down the moonlit sidewalk. Cars were zooming past on the road and the street lights were bright. The two individuals sauntered towards Evergreen Apartments in tranquil silence. The immensely kind man had asked to accompany Heiran on her walk back home and she had to accept. With the kidnapping incident that happened not too long ago, she was in no position to turn down such an offer. It was better to be safe than sorry.
The summer night breeze was still warm, the night sky empty. Heiran tilted her head back and observed the vast expanse of the sky, stumbling slightly in her steps.
"Whoa... Look at that! It's empty. Not a star in sight. Reminds me of my own hopeless life." Heiran wasn't sure where all the pathetic self-pity was coming from. She attributed it and her loose tongue to that of her intoxication. She must be incredibly drunk.
Dohyeok inclined his head back to take a closer look, "You sure about that?"
She couldn't tell what he was referring to but she nodded her head anyway. Whatever it was that he meant, it was all gone anyway. It was all empty, void, absent.
"I see one right over there!" He pointed at the sky, towards a faint, ghostly glow of a star.
Heiran did not believe his words until she fumbled inside her bag and found her reading glasses to observe closer. When she found what he was pointing at, she gasped out loud.
"You're right. It was there!"
Dohyeok offered her a dimpled smile, shards of glittering moonlight in his eyes. "There's always hope, Heiran. You just need to find it."
That was some deep sh*t, she thought drunkenly. Nevertheless, she had to admit there was truth to his words. Heiran just didn't feel that it would be easy to find it.
As if reading her thoughts, he spoke out loud, "He will come back to you. I can feel it."
She scoffed bitterly, "I doubt that."
Now that she had found one, her intoxicated self felt determined to find all the stars in the night sky that she couldn't see with her naked eyes. There were three more and she felt a tinge of joy as she discovered each. Lost in her stargazing, she hadn't realized that she had stumbled off the sidewalk onto the road, right into the oncoming traffic until a car's horn startled her back to reality. Before she could let out a scream in horror, she felt the pull of a strong hand on her elbow. Heiran lost her balance and crashed right into Dohyeok's firm chest. She quickly grabbed hold of his jacket before she could miserably drop to the ground and clung onto it, terrified at how her life had flashed before her eyes mere moments ago.
His hands came down on her elbows, supporting her up. "Heiran. You should be careful. You almost got seriously hurt!"
She managed to regain her balance, looking up at him to apologize for her stupid mistake when she noticed their proximity. Suddenly, she was hyper-aware of the unusual position she was in. As her eyes found him, Dohyeok froze, his mouth halting mid-sentence as the breath left his lungs. There was silence again, one that felt strange. Heiran blinked slowly, surprised by the intensity of his gaze. A heavy tension descended on the atmosphere, something strange and immense hanging in the air. He swallowed, blinking as if he was beginning to wake up from a long, distant dream. Alarm bells began to ring in her inebriated brain and she immediately pushed herself off of the poor guy and dipped into a ninety-degree bow. "I am so sorry! I should not have done that!"
He awkwardly cleared his throat, evading eye contact. "I-it's fine. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I shouldn't have pulled you that hard."
"No, no, you were only trying to save my life. I'm the stupid one here." She cried out loud and he shook his head, opening his mouth to counter her but no sentence made it past his lips. Unable to handle the awkwardness in the air, Heiran quickly tried to change the topic, pointing at the series of apartment buildings that emerged from the ground at a distance.
"There! That's my apartment complex! We're almost there."
It took another eight minutes of uncomfortably quiet walk to reach the entrance of her building. As she reached the entrance, she turned to say her goodbyes, ready to plop herself onto a bed and sleep off the absolute embarrassment she had suffered earlier.
"Thanks for walking me home, Dohyeok. You're a real lifesaver."
"No, don't mention it. It was only the least I could do." He replied, slipping his hands into his pockets. "I hope you will feel better, Heiran."
Heiran could only smile politely, "I hope so too. You're a really nice person, Dohyeok. I just wanted to let you know that."
He dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Thanks."
"Good night then." With a final nod, Heiran turned around to walk back into her apartment, unexpectedly feeling quite alone now that he had to go. Without the distraction of another person, she was too aware of what she was running away from. Her heart felt like a ticking time bomb about to explode into a million pieces, on its very last seconds. Heiran tried to shake the thought out of her mind.
"Heiran," Dohyeok called from behind. She turned around. He held a doleful smile on his lips.
"I'm not nice."
She blinked confused, "What?"
"Nevermind. Good night."
And he was gone before she could as him what he had meant.
On the elevator ride back to her apartment, Heiran wondered what Dohyeok meant by that cryptic statement. Why did he say that he wasn't nice? Was he just being polite? She concluded that it must be. He was way too humble at times that he refused to take credit for his good deeds. It was so typical of him.
Letting out a sigh, she stared up at the ceiling of the elevator, trying to not think much about the loneliness creeping inside her bones. The ceiling was built with some shiny metal, its surface so reflective she could view her distorted self up there. God did she look like a complete train wreck. Looking at her reflection was like facing herself, staring into those brown eyes where the pain she was hiding became too blatantly obvious. No wonder Dohyeok could read her like an open book. After all, there was only so much hurt she could hide, only so much emptiness she could bear.
Jungkook had left and he took a part of her with him.
Now all of it felt empty. Everything felt pointless, so miserably futile. She hated letting him get to her like that. She didn't want this, she didn't want to face this pain. It was too much. It felt suffocating.
Why did he leave?
He was all that she cared about. He was the only one that ever mattered. Why did he have to break her? He could have let her down slowly so that she didn't have to face this pain. He could have given her a warning, some indication to prepare herself.
Before she could try and stop, the tears were streaming down her cheeks. The door inside her brain that she firmly kept close sprung open, letting out the pandemonium inside her. A sob broke from her lips and she covered her mouth with her trembling hands, sliding down the elevator wall to the floor. She dug her nails into her hair, trying to contain her cries, to stop the tears but it was too hard to control.
Because Dohyeok was right. She was only just a human being at the end of the day.
She wondered why she remembered those memories so vividly. Alcohol was supposed to help. It should have made her forget all of them, it should have made her numb. But it only made it worse.
Her cries won't stop. The anguish just won't stop. Her entire being felt as if it was melting into a puddle of angry, frustrated, and miserable tears.
She hated him. She hated everything about him that she liked. She loathed every single detail about him that she loved. If she hadn't opened up her heart to him once again, if she had let the past stay where it was supposed to be, perhaps this would have never happened. She would never have had to feel this torture.
But even as the sobs wracked through her body, she knew that it would have been impossible. If she could do it all over again, she would still open herself up for him. She would still let him in and yet again allow him to break her apart. Maybe she was destined for this misery after all.
Vaguely she heard two female voices trying to talk to her. "Hey, miss. Are you alright? Aren't you that lady from unit 301?"
Heiran couldn't respond no matter how she tried to stop her. It was frustrating how she couldn't stop her sobs and the more she felt so, the harder her wails became. At some point, the kind neighbor ladies must have gone and fetched Yoongi. The next thing she knew, he was at her side, helping her up, patting her shoulders as she cried out loud. He led her back the way to her unit, whispering reassuring instructions in her ear, his hands wrapped around her shoulders. "Hey, hey, Heiran. Watch your step. Don't fall."
"He said it wasn't real, Yoongi. He said it was an illusion." She told him, her tears cascading down like a waterfall.
"Because he's an idiot, Heiran."
"But it was real for me? It felt pretty real to me."
"I know, Heiran. I know."
A/n: Whooo, that was intense. Anyone feeling emotional right now?