Chapter Text
“We met at a time when little to nothing mattered. There were no bills to pay, no clients to meet. No smartphones or instant messages. No social media, no memes. Simpler times, some might say. We used to think that the world ended on the corner of our street, and happiness was a far-fetched concept crafted just for us. We knew nothing about anything, and we didn't care. He was my little ray of sunshine, and I still remember how he used to knock on my door smelling like tangerines, big doe eyes, and bunny smile, asking my parents if I could play with him outside on the street. We used to go to the skate ramp in the back of the old movie theater, and we would stay there until the night was set upon us like a blanket. One night he held my hand and told me that the fireflies were actually little stars that came down from the sky because they wanted to be next to me. That was the moment that I realized I was in love. I was eight years old, and he was seven. We had no idea who we were and who we were going to be, but I already knew that, for the rest of my life, nothing would be as magical as the way I felt for Jungkook.
We grew up together and went from silly boys who liked each other to high school sweethearts. Jungkook was there my whole life. We got used to each other. I saw him bloom from a fragile little kid into a breathtaking guy. Puberty hit him like a truck, but that’s beside the point. Jungkook loved art because he was made out of it. Everything art-related excited him: music, drawing, painting, you name it. To watch him grow into this sensitive, shy guy always felt enough for me to keep me falling for him over and over. I loved to sit beside him on the floor and draw pretty things for my pretty boyfriend, watching his heart-warming smile to each and every piece of not-so-great art I dedicated to him.
The love we felt for each other was the only constant in my life from the first school years until my high school senior year. I got used to our little routines. We discovered the world together, and needless to say we became each other’s world. I don’t recall any other childhood friend of mine, just him. Jungkook was there to wipe away all my sad tears, and to join me whenever happiness was so intense, it literally overflown me.
He never complained, never imposed, and I was so grateful. Obviously, we couldn’t date. Our families would never allow us to. But we were that type of “friends” who everyone thought there was something “weird” about. They were right. Jungkook was my first everything. My first kiss, my first lover, my first chance in life.
I always tried to be there for him the same way he was there for me, but, in the end, I guess I was too immature to realize how I didn’t deserve him. I thought that being his secret boyfriend was enough to make him happy, but I never understood what he really needed from me. As we grew older, our differences started to weigh us down, and I didn’t know how to handle the way he changed. I watched his smile to consistently wither, and I did nothing to help. I mean, at the time, I thought I was cheering him up, but I was too blind to understand his silent cry for help.
All the times I told him, "why don't you try to be happy?" still come to me as waves of regret. I always remember one specific conversation we had a few days after I moved into the university dorm. Jungkook was in his high school senior year, and I was accepted into our local college's architecture school. I was blown away by the fake freedom and naive enough to think that I would finally be able to openly date him, but he wasn't as excited as I was.
"Why don't you wanna come to the frat party with me?"
"I told you, hyung... I'm tired."
"You're always tired these days... you don't even draw anymore."
"I'm sorry."
Jungkook apologized for everything, and that really annoyed me. I didn't recognize him anymore and completely overlooked his reasons. I hated that he wasn't the same Jungkook I met so many years before, and, instead of trying to understand, I resented him.
"I want to introduce you to my friends at the campus, but you're always sad!"
"I'm not sad... I just don't feel like meeting anyone."
"Why not? Are you jealous?"
"Jealous, hyung? Of what exactly?"
"I don't know, Jungkook! Jealous that now I have other friends beside you? Jealous that I'm in college? Jealous that I have this new thing going on for me while you're still in high school? Jealous that I'm happy while you don't seem to get excited about anything that involves me anymore?"
"You really think that I'm this person, hyung?"
"That's the problem! I don't know who you are anymore. You're always bummed out, never want to leave your room, your bed even. Prefer to stay all day playing games instead of going out with me... I try to be your boyfriend, but you keep pushing me away, and I don't know what to do anymore."
"I'm sorry..."
"Stop apologizing, Jungkook! Tell me... be honest, please. Do you still love me?"
"I do. But you're the one who seems to be unsure."
"Jungkook, I think we need to take a break."
I swear I thought about starting out by saying "in my defense..." but I'm not going to even try. I was young and stupid, but I knew that boy like the palm of my hand. I should've known that Jungkook was battling something way bigger than him.
Our break never ended. I used to spend all weekdays between the dorm and the classes. Barely studying, partying, and enjoying my young years like Jungkook never existed. Be that as it may, now that I'm older and a bit wiser, I confess that I tried everything I could to shove down inside of me the realization that Jungkook would never leave my heart. On weekends, when there wasn't any party planned or if I needed to do laundry, I'd come back home but never tried to knock on his door, wondering if he was still thinking about me. I said to myself I didn't care, but I regret how I chose to become a stranger to him.
I would often drink and cry about how I missed Jungkook, but I had terrible friends telling me that I wasted too much time on him. I believed them. Jungkook will always be my first, but soon he stopped being my only. I dated other guys and even a few girls just to be sure it wasn’t my thing. I drank too much, smoked too much, because you only live once, right? I wanted to live and forget about Jungkook. In my head, it would be easier if I was mad at him, so I kept repeating to myself that I did what I had to do because I was tired of dating for both of us. Not once I convinced myself of that.
My junior year in college went away in a blur, and I honestly don’t remember much about it. All the crazy night outs and walk of shames in the morning before class got old pretty fast. I started to miss Jungkook more and more but felt guilty and ashamed. I’m not trying to throw a pity party, but I felt like shit every single time he crossed my mind. The only thing I could think of was that I put him on hold just because he wasn’t fun anymore. I decided to enjoy my life until I felt it was enough while my heart was still beating for him. I missed him and, more than anything, I missed me. I took the quickest road to the edge of the cliff, until I realized that I needed to step back and find myself again.
It was around the time my sophomore year started that I met my best friends to this day. Yoongi had changed his major from Engineering to Architecture, and Namjoon was his friend, still majoring in Engineering. We started to hang out all the time, and soon they were aware of my story with Jungkook and even encouraged me to look for him. Which I didn’t do. I kept all my remorse to myself. I hated when people pointed out my mistakes. I’m still like that, to be honest. And because my new friends only knew my new ways, they couldn’t possibly guess the bond me and Jungkook once had, so they never paid much attention. I don’t blame them. I was never honest.
That should’ve been Jungkook’s freshman year in college, and I was secretly anticipating to see him around the campus, like our good old school days. I had bold expectations. Dumb, but bold. In my head, all the years we spent together were strong enough to put a rock over my reckless year-long slip. Soon we would reconnect, and my heart would be at ease again.
Jungkook never showed up, though.
One weekend I went home and saw him hanging out at the old skate ramp in the back of the movie theater. He was alone, earphones tucked in, head low while drawing something on his sketchbook like he used to do before I left for college. Before I left him. I still can’t forget that image. It’s like I have just seen it even though more than a decade have passed. Jungkook looked like my little ray of sunshine, seated on the old concrete bench, swinging his feet to the beat of the music he was listening to. I don’t know if it was the place or the fact that I needed more than anything to feel like myself again, but I felt like I belonged there, by his side.
Maybe he heard my loud thoughts from afar, or perhaps I stared at him too much but, when I realized, he was staring back at me. Jungkook had the most piercing gaze, and I missed the way he used to look at me, like I was someone who would never hurt him. For a split-second, the thought of running to him and asking for forgiveness crossed my mind. I swear to god I almost did it. But Jungkook didn’t react at all upon seeing me after so long. He lowered his head and kept drawing, giving me the clear message that I didn’t belong by his side, but in his past.
I still regret it. I should’ve at least tried to talk to him instead of walking away. I accidentally confirmed that talking to him wasn’t necessary and that we were no longer on a break. We had definitely broken up.
Jungkook was everything to me, and I should’ve trusted his words when he said that he loved me. Because he did. Now I know that he wasn’t sad, much less he had stopped seeing me as the man of his life.
It took me a few years to realize that Jungkook fought depression ever since he was around 13 years old. Back then, I didn’t know that depression was a thing, and neither did him, to be fair. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. I was too self-centered to understand that his condition had nothing to do with me, and I would probably end up saying something stupid like, “am I not enough to make you happy again?”. In a way, I guess it was better for him that I was that much clueless about his situation.
Jungkook was there my whole life. He loved me even when his entire existence stopped making sense to him. He needed me because I was the only thing that could remind him of a time when everything was fine. I was the only person who made him feel like his old self. And I left.
I put the blame on him, and I left.
Ironic how I constantly asked him why he was sad, and ignored him when he told me it wasn’t sadness what he was feeling. In the end, I was the one to show him what sadness actually was.
We had so many memories together. An infinity of little tokens that we gathered along our journey. Jungkook's favorite sweater that I used all the time, little notes that confessed our love for each other, cute drawings that I kept in my wallet. Photos that we took with old disposable cameras, revealed in the discretion of some random darkroom. So many flowers that have dried between pages of books that seemed to tell our happy ever after. I took all those memories with me, and I kept them in a box that I never dared to open.
I went back to my dorm on that Sunday and started my life over. I can say with some margin of error that I never saw him again. Maybe one time at our local supermarket during the holidays, or once or twice while I was riding my bike with my brother around town when I went home to visit my mom. More and more, my home stopped feeling like such. It was just a house that I used to live in. The old town in which I was born and raised started to feel like a place I didn’t belong. I didn’t know anything without Jungkook, and yet, it was pretty clear that we both had moved on. My brother even asked me once what happened to that old little friend of mine, and I just answered that “life happened” and that “it’s natural for people to drift apart.”. I envied how natural I made it seem.
The architecture school was relentless, and soon I saw myself drowned in projects, plants, models, and endless non-sleeping nights that went by faster than I could grasp. Yoongi and Namjoon became my roommates by the end of our sophomore year, and we would spend most nights trying to survive college. When I realized, finals were knocking on our doors, and my birthday was just around the corner. I had decided that I was too busy to celebrate, but Yoongi convinced us to go out for at least one drink.
That’s when I met him.
Gyohun was drinking by himself at the bar when I approached the bartender, asking for three beers while Yoongi and Namjoon started a pool match before someone could claim the table. I always knew that this moment would linger in my mind forever. He asked me if I was that good of a drinker, and it took me a few seconds to understand that he was talking about my order. I laughed and said that, in fact, I was very experienced. He told me something about my statement being a good euphemism for a chronic alcoholic, and I just laughed at how bad at flirting that guy was.
Nonetheless, there was something about him that caught my attention. Modesty aside, I’ve always been a good looking guy and got used to drawing people’s attention whenever I entered a party. It was a familiar scenario for me, and quite flattering how I was always entertaining people who wanted to date me. In my freshman year, it wouldn’t take much effort from my suitor to discover how was I in bed, but my junior year was about to start, and I was already tired of casual flings. I said goodbye with a friendly smile and three bottles of beers in my hands.
Admittedly, I had a great time that night. College was skinning us alive, and we were tired of seeing nothing but precise lines and complicated math in front of our eyes. It felt great to celebrate my 20th birthday doing all those things we were already used to do. We drank good beer, laughed at each other’s jokes, and created cherished memories. I felt like Yoongi and Namjoon truly became the family I chose for myself.
I was willing to focus solely on enjoying some time off with my friends, but it was impossible to ignore Gyohun staring at me all night. I tried to act like he was just another man figuring out the best time to approach me, but I felt like flirting back for some reason. I laughed way more, danced way more, touched other men, all to tease him. Gyohun was too shy, though. He kept his distance and was content to just look at me with those nice eyes of his. Fueled by alcohol, I lost my patience very fast. I wasn’t accustomed to waiting for the man that I wanted to put his hands on me. Yes, I was that cocky, and when my beer bottle ran empty, I decided it was the perfect time for me to approach the bar once again and give Gyohun an opportunity to fancy me the way I was used to.
“You sure like to watch, huh?”
“Not really, but watching you has just become my favorite thing in life.”
He was cheesy but adorable. College boys can be utterly disgusting when their goal is just to get you into bed, but Gyohun didn’t seem to be like that at all. His voice was very low, and I almost couldn’t hear him due to the loud music and frantic conversations around us.
“What’s your major?”
“Business. Foreign trade. I’m graduating, actually. And you?”
“I’m finishing my sophomore year… Architecture and Landscaping.”
“I knew it had something to do with beautiful things.”
“Really? Why?”
“It suits you.”
It was easy to talk to him, even with us having such opposite personalities. I enjoyed talking about everything, and he would really listen to me. We fell in love hopelessly, and it didn’t take too long before I couldn’t see myself without him anymore. He treated me like I was the best thing that has ever happened to him and, to me, he was my second chance in life. Gyohun soon graduated and moved into an apartment close to the university. I continued to live in the dorm with Yoongi and Namjoon. We became a couple, THE couple. So much in love that I decided to come out to my family and endure all the homophobia and overall disrespect to show the world that Gyohun was my man. It wasn’t easy, but I grew up a lot because of him. We made plans and started to build our lives together.
It fell like a bomb over my head when he told me he got offered a great job opportunity at the capital. I was in my senior year, soon-to-be architect, but it was still March. We had the whole year ahead of us, and long-distance relationships scared me. Gyohun was the sweetest, though. He did everything he could to make me feel safe about us. We went apartment hunting together and picked up furniture for our future home. He made me part of his moving process, telling me it was only a matter of time, and that soon I would be joining him in a place to call our own.
I did everything right and graduated with good grades. January arrived, and I finally moved to the capital, ready to start my life as an architect and a husband. It was scary, but not once I felt lonely. Gyohun did everything he could to make me feel safe and loved. Life beside him was showing signs that it would be easy, peaceful. It was all that I wanted.
Yoongi and Namjoon were both from the capital, so, as soon as we graduated, they moved to their home city as well. It was just a matter of time until one of us came up with the idea of starting our own office together.
Every puzzle piece of my life was in place.
I was so happy. I can’t even begin to start describing how over the moon I was. We weren’t rich, but we had everything we needed. Gyohun was the most attentive husband I could ask for, and I loved him deeply. I never wanted kids but was willing to become a father if he wanted to adopt one or two little ones. I had just turned 23 and knew nothing about life, but happiness had a face and a name. And he was mine.
I let myself be struck by lightning, and every time I looked at Gyohun, I just knew that there was nothing in the world capable of ruining our happy lives together. Arguably, I was in denial, but I swear I didn’t notice when my husband started acting differently.
We were living together for a little more than a year when Gyohun was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and I knew that I was the one to blame for not noticing the pattern. Like Jungkook, Gyohun lost interest in everything, including me. I always knew he suffered from anxiety, but he was really good at hiding his darkest thoughts until they started to drown him. He would cry for no apparent reason for hours on end, and, sometimes, he would lie down on our guest room bed on Friday after work, and I wouldn’t see him for days. It was hard to endure his crisis because everything was fine at one moment, and at the other, it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to smile ever again.
Yoongi and Namjoon were my biggest support throughout those horrible times when I felt like Gyohun was a stranger in my house. I was there for him no matter what, but sometimes I needed a moment away to cry until my eyes couldn’t handle anymore, so I used to hide in my friends’ apartment until I convinced myself it couldn’t be true.
Gyohun had horrible pain episodes, and the medicines he used to take were too strong, leaving him in a catatonic state for days. I can’t remember how many medical leaves he got over the years. The treatment was good, but his condition was too severe and evolved fast.
I didn't know what to do anymore other than hold my husband's hand. Everything went from a sweet fairytale to a cursed nightmare, but I still loved him. He changed, became thinner, lost his essence, but I could still see the man I fell in love with when I looked into his eyes. And I felt terrible for him because I saw how much he loved me back. It wasn't just gratitude for taking care of him. No… he loved me. That love made me do things I never thought I could do. I worked until my body couldn't take a second more, and my eyes got red from not sleeping at all, to pay for the best treatment for him. Whenever he got dragged into one of his crises, I did my best to try and pull him out of them. I took him to the sea and to the sky. We traveled to many places and sometimes that helped a lot. However, sometimes he acted like he wasn't even there.
We fought together for five years until he couldn’t take it anymore.
Gyohun left me a year and a half ago. And since then, I don’t know anything but darkness.