When life gives you lemons, it becomes too sour, but when you add sugar to your lemonade, the bitterness fades away gradually and you start enjoying your drink. That was what I believed life to be at that moment.
The pain we felt was intolerable. The hunger, the thirst, the loneliness we both felt even though we had each other. We each had people to think about, to worry about. We each had our own problems, but we never opened up about them to each other. He was an idol, and I was an ordinary person. Our problems and lives didn't crash, even though in such a situation, we were both just the same in front of nature's powers. Despite all that, though, we still found peace and hope in talking to each other.
The sun was already up by the time I felt a bit better. Not only did the tsunami water destroy our surroundings, but also my insides. I was still capable of feeling the dirty water whirl around inside my body and that was why every now and then I would feel nauseous, but always tried to distract myself from that disgusting feeling. Not only that, but Jimin's weight alongside mine was tiring my legs out and the problem was that I couldn't use both legs completely because one of them was completely injured. I was starving and somewhat thirsty, but despite all that, we just walked non stop. Of course, we felt so much pain as we limped our way alongside the large body of water, so we tried to talk about random subjects to distract our minds from our injuries.
"So, Seo Yeon, how did you become an ARMY?" Jimin asked me with a gentle smile.
I let out a silent laugh and then sighed.
"I've been with you guys for about six years. I never heard of you when you first started, but one day, as I was walking home, I uh... I saw you on TV in an electronics store, and all it took for me to become an ARMY was to know your names," I said with a smile and he returned one to me too.
"I know you love us the same and all, but I heard of something called... umm... a bias? Did I say it correctly?" He asked me and so I nodded in response, trying not to talk too much or else I would've ended up saying something stupid or fangirled then regret all my life decisions.
"So who was yours?" He asked me, his voice trembling a bit due to our excessive limping.
My smile died down a bit, and I looked down.
"Taehyung," I responded and his smile died just as fast as mine did. His eyes softened and I felt his hand on my shoulder, patting it slightly in an attempt to comfort me.
"That's why you want to find him so bad?" He asked me.
I shook my head and then gave him a sad smile," If it was anyone else in the world, I would've wanted to save them just as bad."
The silence that overtook us after that was deadly, extremely deadly. I knew that there was nothing wrong with the response I gave him, but my brain couldn't help but wonder why he suddenly stopped talking.
"You are such a nice girl, Seo Yeon. You really are," he said.
What does the word 'breathing' mean again? Oh, I wouldn't know.
"W-why are you being like that all of a sudden? I did nothing," I said faintly with a shy smile, cheeks burning more than the sun that was roasting the two of us.
"Nothing? Pfft, you are calling playing on the strings of my heart nothing. Ahh people don't understand much about human emotions anymore," He scoffed to himself, almost mumbled, but for some reason, I managed to hear every single word of it as though he was saying it loud enough for me to hear.
My face burned even more at what he said, but he only smiled without even looking at my face. He knew what he was doing and how it was affecting me.
"You know what? Maybe after all this is done, and we all go back to our own lives, we can still be friends," he said all of a sudden and rotated his head to the right to look into my eyes as he talked. His eyes disappeared as his lips rose with the most beautiful and precious smile ever.
Oh god.
Yes, Jimin, indeed, was my bias wrecker and you have no idea how much I was being wrecked at that moment.
"Sure," I said with a smile that was equivalent to his in sincerity.
"Okay. Why don't we get to know each other better? It seems as though you already know me well enough so why don't I start?" He asked me after a long, deep sigh, causing me to nod in response.
"Okay, so... how old are you?" He asked me.
"Twenty four. I was born in the same year as you and Taehyung. But don't worry, you both are still older than me," I said after I saw his eyes widen.
"Cool. What did you study in university?" He asked.
"Computer science," I answered back.
"Did you like what you studied?"
I paused for a moment and then looked down," No. I didn't. And I still don't."
"Why did you continue down this road then? Why didn't you change?" He asked me, face completely serious. I never knew Jimin was that chatty.
"I wanted to be an artist. I really loved art. It was the one thing I truly enjoyed doing. When I had to file in my admission report, my parents told me to choose something else. They told me being an artist doesn't give me a high status in this society. So they made me apply to Computer Science. They told me that everything in the future will be automated, and the ones who will be at an advantage are the ones who can code and make those machines. That's why I'm here, studying the subject I hate the most," I said.
He looked at me with hurt obvious in his eyes. To have an ARMY tell him that she didn't like what she does, that her dreams had been shattered by someone was probably something any Bangtan member would hate to hear and it would break them, considering that their message was to love ourselves and follow our dreams. I always followed that message, always found the need to spread it too, but not that time. If the whole world was in for me being an artist but my parents weren't, there was no way on Earth I would've done what I wanted, so I figured it was just destiny that brought me along with my enemy.
"But still. You already entered this road, so you might as well work on being special at what you do. Don't let the fact that you hate this subject bring you down. Prove yourself through it," he told me and it made me smile.
I nodded at him and said," I'll make sure to do that right after we survive."
"Good. That's good news. I'll ask your parents you know, so you better keep this promise," he said and it made me laugh. He was treating me like a ten year old, but while other people might just feel annoyed about it, I actually thought it was cute how he probably thought of me as his little sister or something.
"Okay Mr. Park Jimin," I said dramatically and it made him laugh.
"Okay. Um... did you have a boyfriend? Or someone you loved but just couldn't get together with?" He asked me.
I shook my head at him.
"I couldn't. It's not because I couldn't actually, it was because I didn't want to. Giving yourself away to someone is a step that I don't want to take. At least not now. It will only make things worse for me," I answered him.
"Okay. I am running out of questions, so you better save the situation and ask me something instead," he said and his eyes disappeared as he laughed to hide his shyness.
"Well... there is nothing that I want to ask really," I replied and rubbed the back of my neck.
It wasn't that I didn't want to ask him something. In fact, there were many aspects of his life that I was too interested to know about, but I just felt like it would be considered as invading his privacy if I brought myself to ask him all those questions freely.
"Come on! I'm sure there was this one thing you wanted to ask me if you ever met me in person! And here we are. Not only did you meet me, you also saved my life and now you get to save Taehyung's life and everything is going just great!" He said, leaving me with a completely blank head. There was literally nothing in my brain at that moment. It was as though my brain was comprised of nothing but vacuum and the moment a thought found its way near it, the vacuum present inside would crush it, leaving me thoughtless all over again.
I just shook my head at him.
"No. There is nothing I want to ask," I replied with a smile.
He sighed and then said," Alright."
I didn't know why our mood flipped after that, but we just stopped talking. I thought that maybe it was because we have been talking too much to the point that we used up all the topics that humans could ever talk about. Instead of wasting our energy on talking further, we spent our time walking. Nothing about the next hour was different than the previous one. Time just seemed to pass and we only felt it when the sun rose or set.
Jimin and I had nothing to use to keep track of time. The problem with the two of us was that we refused to take a rest during the day because we were scared that we would be wasting time. Since walking around with nothing to do but look at the ground that we were limping on was extremely boring, time seemed to be passing really slow and that was why we couldn't depend on our senses. After a lot of consideration, Jimin and I finally decided that we should walk all day and rest all night. That was the only way we could keep track of time. Instead of using hours and minutes, Jimin and I had to experience the stone age by depending on the sun and the moon. Soon enough, the sun started to set and we took that as our cue to rest for the night.
Our surroundings were still pretty much the same no matter how far we walked, still the same, old, muddy grass. The river seemed to be stretched to infinity and no matter how much we walked, it was still walking by us.
Jimin and I dropped ourselves slowly to the ground, trying our best to sit down without feeling any form of pain. The colours of the sky got reflected on the water, causing it to look like a whole river of honey. The color of the setting sun also got reflected on Jimin's eyes, making it very hard for me to keep my eyes of his as he stared at the orange sky above us. The moment he noticed that I was staring at his eyes, I found myself involuntarily pretending like I was busy looking at something else behind him, but he wasn't stupid. In fact, I was the stupid one because there was nothing special behind Jimin that I could possibly look at.
"Ugh! Where the hell is Taehyung?" I asked myself as I stretched my legs out a bit.
I heard a faint sigh escape Jimin's mouth as he propped his body up against both of his arms, watching the sun take its final breath before finally disappearing completely.
"He really shouldn't have wandered off. Now we won't be able to find him no matter how much we walk," I mumbled to myself as I messed with the piece of cloth that was wrapped around my leg to pass time.
What followed next was silence. Silence silence and more silence. I didn't feel like talking and Jimin probably felt the same. All I could think about was what was going on inside Jimin's head at that very specific moment as he watched the sun get replaced by the moon, my best friend, the sole reason behind why I made it that far. It seemed as though Jimin appreciated the presence of the moon too, because his eyes shone the brightest whenever it came into contact with it.
I laid back and thought of only one thing next: the promise that I made to Jimin.
Taehyung is a promise that I must keep, and I will. But where the could he possibly be?
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