#i just realised the numbers after my months long semi-hiatus
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ONE
It had been a year since Anastasia had even been in the same room as him.
A year since he’d sat her down and told her that maybe them not being together anymore was for the best. His life was too crazy for him to even really handle, and he felt it was unfair to her to have such a strain on their relationship. Never mind that they’d been in said relationship for nearly two years already and had been friends for nearly a decade more. And at the time, she’d understood his want to not ruin their friendship with heartbreak and fights and nasty words that might come down the road. That didn’t mean her heart hadn’t broken when they’d said their final goodbyes to each other, sharing a last kiss before Harry left her flat. But it was the sort of heartbreak that she could live with because they’d agreed to still be there for each other when they needed it.
Of course, that hadn’t happened. She’d not heard a peep out of him since he walked out of her little home in the center of London.
She figured it wouldn’t have hurt so bad if she hadn’t seen the tabloids with his face splashed across them, his arms wrapped around a certain American model/reality TV star just a few months later. He’d not even told her of the hiatus the band was slated for, though there was no way he hadn’t known about it himself at that point. So, yeah, she was absolutely livid to see him having the time of his life on a yacht in St. Bart’s with the reality princess who thought she stood a chance in the modeling business because her family was famous for absolutely nothing and infamous for just about everything else.
If Harry had tried to get into contact with her after that, she wouldn’t have known, because she changed her number, and blocked him from her social media sites, and sent his emails straight to junk if he ever tried to reach her that way. She’d heard from her mum once around his birthday that he had been back to Holmes Chapel and was asking after her, but her mum knew how she felt about him. She’d been polite in saying that Sia was doing well, working in London and slated for a promotion. When he’d asked for her new number, her mother, bless her, had declined, citing that it wasn’t a good idea. She’d said he understood, but Sia wasn’t quite sure if that was the whole story. It didn’t matter, really.
Anastasia did end up with that promotion, which sent her to LA for at least a year. She’d panicked at first, knowing that Harry had a semi-permanent residence there, but she realized that the likelihood of them running into each other was just about as good as her meeting Elvis. LA was big and she was low man on the totem pole in her line of work—which just so happened to be pretty close to Harry’s—and she was sure she wouldn’t be trusted on projects with someone as big as Harry Styles, so there was no reason for their paths to ever cross.
Except they did, around late August. She’d had a blissful five months of living in LA without seeing hide nor hair of her ex-boyfriend/ex-best friend, and she had counted her lucky stars each day that she got by unscathed. But, when it finally came to the time where she saw him in a pub on a random Saturday night—the only respectable pub in a twenty mile radius of her home—she knew her luck had run out.
She froze as she entered the bar, seeing his recently shorn locks—which were a bit of a shock to her, since she’d avoided anything involving Harry Styles since she’d seen that God forsaken article about him on the yacht—tucked into a booth in the corner, surrounded by a few other lads who’s faces looked vaguely familiar. She had a feeling she knew one of them from a telly program she used to watch back in the UK, but she couldn’t be quite sure in the dim lighting of the room. She quickly contemplated walking right back out of the building and not looking back, but she’d be damned if she let him scare her from the one place she found solace on her weekends. She’d been coming here since she moved to America, and she’d drop dead before she let the likes of him run her off.
She shook herself out of it quickly, and made her way to the bar, slinking herself down into an empty stool, as far away from Harry as possible, not facing him, so on the off chance that he’d glance up, he’d not see her face. She ordered two shots of tequila right off the bat, the bartender, who she’d gotten to know pretty well over the last few months, raised an eyebrow at her request, but fulfilled it anyway. Sia was typically a pint sort of girl, from years of being around Harry’s bandmates and her own parents enjoying a pint on the weekends, but she needed something stronger to ease her nerves. Pints were for when she was ready to wind down from a long work week. Liquor was for trying to calm her nerves after seeing her ex for the first time in a year in a random pub in LA.
She threw back the two shots quickly, wiping the corners of her mouth where a little dribbled out. She pushed the two glasses back from her and the bartender shook a pint glass at her, asking silently if she’d like her regular now.
Suddenly hearing Harry’s boisterous laugh in the corner set her on edge all over again, her shoulders raising up protectively around her ears. She bore down on her teeth as she glanced over, seeing his head tossed back, mouth open in laughter.
God, he’s still so fucking beautiful, she thought bitterly.
Turning back to the bartender, she shook her head. “Martini, please. Strong.”
“One of those nights, huh?” he asked, a sad little smile on her face as he poured the liquor in a tumbler.
“It wasn’t until about ten minutes ago,” she grumbled, throwing a pointed glare toward Harry’s table. They had quieted down again, but Harry was still grinning, that grin that used to set Anastasia’s heart into a tizzy and make her grin back at him, stupidly in love.
“You got a problem with those lads?” he asked, pouring Sia’s drink into a martini glass, spearing two olives into it. The bartender—Eric—was a Scotland native relocated to LA when his wife’s job called for it. He was the only person in LA who Sia had met that she could relate to when talking about home. Sure they weren’t from the same place, exactly, but he still held his roots, like Anastasia, as opposed to other people from the UK she’d met that would rather act like home no longer meant anything to them.
“Not all of ‘em, no,” she shook her head, offering him a wry smile as she accepted her drink. “Just the one at the end facin’ this way.”
“Old one night stand?” he guessed while pouring a beer for the customer next to her.
She shook her head with a scoff. “I wish. Best friend turned boyfriend, turned ex-boyfriend turned ex-best friend.”
“Ouch,” he hissed, making a wounded look with his face.
Anastasia gave a humorless chuckle as she sipped at the strong drink. “I know. Haven’t even seen his face in a year.”
“He’s that Styles lad, right? From that boyband?”
“The one and only,” she confirmed, nodding solemnly. “Told me it was better we weren’t together ‘cause him bein’ away wasn’t fair to me or our relationship. Few months later, I see his mug pasted all over mags lovin’ on that model girl. Proper kicked him out of my life after that.”
“Jesus, darlin’,” Eric whistled. “Surprised yeh stuck around after seein’ him when yeh walked in here.”
She sighed, pulling the speared olives out of her drink. “Me too, but this is my spot. He can’t have it.” She pulled one off and popped it in her mouth, chewing and swallowing before continuing. “Twat gets everything else he wants. This is mine, though. Long as he doesn’t see me, we’re good.”
Eric began nodding as Anastasia popped the second olive in her mouth. His eyes trailed over to the table her ex was sat at, only to see that the lad’s eyes were trained on her, brows furrowed and mouth popped open in some expression he couldn’t decipher. He didn’t want to burst her bubble, but he felt he owed it to her to warn her that there was a very real possibility that he’d be disrupting her peace.
“Hate to break it to yeh, love, but he’s looking right at yeh with this dumb expression on his face.” He watched from the corner of his eyes, pouring another mug of draught, as Harry craned his neck trying to get a better look at the woman sitting at the bar. “Think he’s tryin’ t’ decide if it’s actually you.”
Anastasia, against her better judgement, peeked over her shoulder, looking right into Harry’s searching eyes. She whipped her head back forward, hunching her shoulders again. “Fuck,” she spit, quickly picking up her glass and downing the rest of the drink. “Shouldn’t’ve done that.”
“He’s comin’ over here,” Eric warned, keeping his eyes on the glass he was drying in his hand.
“Bloody perfect,” she huffed under her breath. She fixed her gaze on the bar top, hoping that if she kept her head down, Harry’d get the hint and walk away without talking to her. She’d cut him out of her life for a reason, and he had to realise that. He was daft sometimes, but he wasn’t a fucking imbecile.
Anastasia felt when Harry dropped into the empty barstool next to her, the energy that he carried around with him washing over her and making the hairs on her arms stand on end. She could smell him, too, the same scent that always lingered on his skin—the same body wash he’d been using for years, the same laundry softener that she knew Anne had been washing his clothes with since they were kids, and the Tom Ford cologne he’d taken to around his nineteenth birthday. She hated that she knew so much about someone who felt like a perfect stranger to her now, but she couldn’t help all the innate knowledge she held about him. They’d known each other since primary, for crying out loud. She was bound to know all these things about him. It didn’t help the ache in her chest at being so close to him, though.
“Sia,” he breathed out, his deep voice startling her. She hadn’t heard his voice since this time last year, when he’d whispered one last goodbye against her mouth before walking out the front door of her flat.
“Styles,” she acknowledged with a single nod of her head, not looking up at him. She couldn’t. She wasn’t ready for that. She used his last name in greeting to keep things impersonal. She’d called him H or Haz for most of their lives. He didn’t deserve the nickname. She was sort of upset that he’d even used her nickname, the one he’d given her long before Sia the musician had become known. The first time they’d met, he’d said that Anastasia was a mouthful, and when she’d expressed her disdain of the nickname Ana, he’d started calling her Sia. Now everyone called her Sia, even her parents.
“What are yeh doin’ here?” Harry asked, confusion clear in his voice.
Sia snorted at his question. She nodded her head in thanks when Eric placed a full pint in front of her, obviously sensing that she needed more alcohol. “I’m having a few drinks. What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t mean the bar,” he quickly amended. “I meant America. LA.”
“I live here,” she shrugged, taking a sip of her beer, swiping her tongue across her top lip where some of the head had stuck to her skin.
“Since when? Last time I saw your mum, she didn’t say anythin’ about it.”
Sia finally peeked a look at him from the corner of her eyes, watching as he dragged his hand through his hair. It was a habit he’d had for as long as she could remember, but it was strange seeing him do it when his hair was so short. For the last four years of their friendship, he’d been growing it out, and now it was the shortest she’d seen it since their early years of secondary.
“When’d yeh last see my mum?” she asked, curious since her mother hadn’t mentioned anything about Harry the last time they’d spoken just a few days ago.
“About a month ago. Was filming near home and stopped in for the weekend. She was round my parents’ house when I showed up.”
Sia was slightly affronted that her mother hadn’t mentioned anything, but then, she thought it was maybe for the best that she hadn’t. Even the mention of Harry’s name out of anyone’s mouths made her a little uneasy, and she was sure her mother knew that.
“Been living here since March,” she supplied. She took another sip of her beer. “Working with a producer that’s based here. Choice was easy.”
She saw Harry’s eyebrows shoot up, his eyes sparkling with an excitement. He knew how much that opportunity meant to her, to be able to work with a music producer, doing what she loved and what she’d gone to school for. Her mum hadn’t said anything to him about Sia getting a job in the industry, so this was amazing news for him.
“Yeah? That’s great! Who’s the producer?”
She rolled her eyes at his enthusiasm. As far as she was concerned, he didn’t get to be excited for her anymore. When she’d heard from Anne about him landing the role on the new Nolan film, she’d rolled her eyes in her head and sipped at her tea, offering his mum a hum that she hoped didn’t seem too rude. She loved Anne, but she knew her son had broken something inside of the girl, so she wasn’t too surprised by her lackluster reaction.
“Does it matter?” she asked.
Harry’s face dropped instantly, brows furrowing, lips frowning. “I mean…”
“Just stop,” she urged, pushing back her barely touched pint. She grabbed her purse from her lap and dug around for some bills to cover her tab. “This is weird. Stop acting like everythin’ is normal.” She stood and tossed the money on the bar top, sending a nod at Eric, who was at the other end of the bar, tending to someone else but keeping his eyes on Sia. He nodded back, acknowledging her thanks and goodbye.
“I’m so—”
“Don’t apologize, Styles,” she warned, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Little too late for that, don’t yeh think?” Sia turned to walk away from him, hating the way her heart squeezed in her chest. She clenched her teeth against the tears that were threatening to collect in her eyes. She’d been in his presence for two minutes, and a year’s worth of built defenses and hardened exteriors was crumbling. She hated him for making her feel like this.
“Wait, Sia,” he called, hopping up from his seat to follow after her. “Lemme walk yeh home. It’s dark out.”
“Don’t fuckin’ bother. Been gettin’ by fine on my own. Yeh don’t need to pretend to care now, Harry.”
The door to the bar slammed behind her before Harry could even open his mouth to form a rebuttal.
#Harry Styles#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles fanfic#harry styles angst#harry styles fic#harry styles writing#the long road home#TLRH
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Anagapesis
(n.) No longer feeling any affection for someone you once loved; falling out of love.
Inspired by the quote: “How selfhood begins with the walking away and love is proved in the letting go.”
Summary: Falling in love with Yoongi was easy. Watching him fall out of love with you was hard and there was only little you could do but hope that he found his way home after long nights of being away.
Genre: !Yoongi! + angst + fluff (i swear there’s a happy ending)
Word count: 12.7k
A/N : Initially, I was really hesitant about posting this. Most of the story really taps into raw emotions and personal experience and if im honest, I put my soul into writing this. I really hope you guys like it. I’ve spent ages on this and i’m so sorry about my semi-hiatus turned hiatus but im back! Please, please, tell me how you guys feel about it! criticisms and comments are v much appreciated.
You don’t realise.
Maybe you do. Yet, only fail to accept the gnawing pang in your heart that screams to be acknowledged; tucked down every time you force to assure yourself more often than not these days that he loves you, he had to love you – right?
You say you don’t realise but you do, you definitely do, when the morning rays hit the bedsheets and a soft warm glow fills the room and your heart still stings like something akin to how an ice burn would.
You notice with a miserable ache that the bed feels as cold to touch as his skin and the icy miles you’ve put between yourselves is unbearable but neither of you stretches arms to each other to break the iceberg in the middle that hovers in the air in all its apparency.
An iceberg like a constant reminder that there was something obviously wrong in this relationship. Something that neither of you would yield to yet lying to yourselves to say you didn’t notice, fearful of the prospect of what happened when you did.
And his skin, God, his skin was smooth like untouched snow and the warming sunrise hues melted his ivory skin that stained the sheets like ichor into puddles of perfection.
And he looked like a porcelain doll and you could count numbers like the strands of his dark hair sprawled like a fan on the pillows of reasons listing why you loved him, why you’d fallen in love with this man who’d given you nothing more than the infinity and murmured soft kisses into your neck under the witness of the stars and the watchful moon.
The man who had caressed your skin under the soft moonlight, under the gaze of Artemis and the reigns of her night sky that he’d be with you till the ends of the world and beyond.
Loving him was supposed to be infinite. Yet the assurance of infinity was fragile and fell from the safety of your fingers like glass. A clumsy mistake. A hopeless desperation. Shards too sharp and painful to touch and only a longing stare to redo the past differently in its wake.
And here, laying together but not fully together you realised with a daunting recognition that this infinity that you’d proclaimed with naïve hopes and dreams was finite and finishing.
The seeds of a blooming relationship that you had once possessed had seeped into the earth. A connection that had seemed as impossible to break and decipher as the roots of noble trees, giant in age and true in their confidentiality was only the waterlogged earth gulping for breath at your feet.
And as much as you had hoped that your connection would remain as vibrant and prosperous like the first time it had taken to flourish, it was feeble against the change of seasons where flourished flowers kneeled before time and were helpless into becoming decaying ones.
You chastised yourself at the same clueless optimism that you had used to believe that this intimacy, this tenderness that was supposed to be stronger than its fragile appearance would breed life into the darkness of the earth and turn greyish leaves into burning red ones.
Golden speckled like embers and suffer forged and furious, resembling the autumn months did you believe that your love willed anger into a drive for its survival.
You were blind-eyed and walking in a fantasy that was as childlike as your want for the past.
In reality, love was weak and resembled more like the sand that slipped between your fingertips and seemed too far spread to collect, to piece back together like the small world you’d held in the palm of your hands for so long – till now.
For now you could only hang onto each of his words because your relationship to you was like a story. You’d come to the last few sentences and your heart tugged at the thought that you’d one day have to place your eyes on a final single word and a full stop to end whatever this was and close the book despite your stubbornness to stare at it forever.
And you stared at his back as the morning hues took a dullish turn and your monochrome bedroom resembled the dark turn of your life and the never-ending routine you would have to subject yourself to once more – one more day again and again till months passed and one more day was only a reminder that it would eventually only be one more day.
Laying here in the early break of dawn, his body tired out from the hours spent at the studio, you continued to stare at his back, vast as the oceans between you and thought about how he seemed too far away on the bed to be even considered to be sleeping with you.
Staring at his back, as cold and distant to you as the frosty evenings and conversations, you yearned for the memories where he’d turn around, like a sixth sense tingling in his sleep as if he’d known that you were staring and grumble to ask why you were awake and cross the mountains of pillows to pull you under his chin and drowsily tell you to go to sleep.
However, this time like most days, you were met with a still silence and an acknowledgment that those were memories – and memories were things of the past.
So here in your present, Yoongi the best present life had given you, you crossed the mountains of pillows today instead, a bold move and an even more labouring task that caused a quickening of your breath and a rapid thud at your heart against your ribs and you pulled yourself to rest your head in the nook of his spine knowing that he wouldn’t move and in the next hours you’d find yourself miles apart again and tried to assure yourself that nothing was wrong and that everything was okay like it had always been and this time you tried to pretend like he was telling you to go to sleep like he always did.
And you just wanted to sleep not to take solace in slumber but simply because you wanted to live in the land of dreams and fairy tales because you were simply too afraid to wake up and try your hand at another day of avoiding the problems that were becoming far too apparent to be ignored. You were too afraid to come to the terms with the fact that nothing was okay-
That nothing had been okay between you two in a very long time.
And in this present, lying next to him, you only sought to find sleep in the comfort of your lies and pretence and could only hope that you would wake up the day you didn’t need to anymore.
When you met him, he was a man that lacked in words.
Yet, his unwillingness to talk to you was enough to get you intrigued, entranced by the old soulful eyes that took you on journeys and held enough conversations that let you pry into the intimates of his life even without him opening his mouth.
And you travelled his little world in the few seconds you glanced into his brown eyes and you were left with a thirst, a desperation, a want needed to be quenched to see more, to know more.
And his silence and his stubbornness to take a foot forward towards you was the lack of a welcoming hand despite your persisting attempts to be patient and determined even when he wasn’t.
At first, he tried his very best to wave off your irritating attempts in getting to know him, tried to stop you from pursuing your efforts of reading into his story, prying open every cobwebbed page rotting away with years of feelings untouched and forgotten, suppressed into little lines and far too great a book.
You, however, were vibrant as the world that existed around him, a world that had lost his touch and seemed far too distant and tasteless.
And the world, this world he’d once wanted nothing more to do with was grey and monochrome yet your smile breathed light and colour into the ends of the earth that made him want to explore it again to see just what it was that could make you shine so brilliantly- god, he wanted to see it too.
You were bright, you were warm and homey and everything he needed to feel at home again. You were everything he wasn’t and so you moulded into the figures and curves of his body with perfection and your smile and your giddy laughter was contagious and he understood.
God, standing with you he understood that there were somethings in life that could make you too happy to explain.
He understood only by kissing you, on the same lips you used to smile as if the earth was star speckled and coated in fairy dust and magic- that this was what made you shine so brilliantly.
And he understood and more often than not, he’d find himself forgetting who he was, who he was supposed to be and letting himself delve into the little wonders of life that were you.
Together, you bred life into his little storybook. You named every character and held his hand and went over the fading ink so that it was new again and where once even smiling your way and any sort of contact or brief communication was something far too great a distance for him to fathom – he’d found himself miles away from where he’d started, travelled the distance and voyaged every corner of the world by the end of every sitting with you – creeping closer and closer to a territory that Yoongi would have easily expanded on the same earth he’d once found tiresome to share with you.
When in love, what time was there to think about technicalities?
With Yoongi, there was a lot of things you’d found yourself having to become accustomed to.
You’d found yourself accustomed to the door and every one of its dents. You had stared at every stain with a straining sigh and a soft shake of your head.
You’d found yourself noticing the way the hinges had started to come of the door handle, time worn on the metal as a reminder that you’d been doing this for too long- waiting into the dead of the night for him to enter the door despite your knowing that this was another one of those days where he’d lay his head down and find sleep in the discomfort of his studio chair.
You’d found yourself accustomed to the repetitive routine of repeated events, accustomed to staring at the steam blow off the hot plated dinner into the vacancy of the room to keep you company before the stumbling footsteps at the door once you’d thrown most of it into the trash.
You’d become accustomed to the apologies murmured into the crook of your neck and the arms tight around your waist to yield your disappointment into understanding and you had become old and aged at the empty promises he’d leave on your skin and down your body of a fancy dinner the next night.
It's the same cold, cold night where he’d leave you dressed only to cancel, leaving your hopes and dreams at the foot of the doorstep, not so brave to leave the home and unwavering against the apology texts and more promises of next time that have snaked into an anxiety that pleads him not to because you’re sick of hoping to be anything but disappointed.
You had become accustomed to shaking your head and assuring yourself that his lack of time for you was okay because his work was unpredictable in the way that his actions weren’t.
But you are accustomed to it- you’re used to it. You’ve adapted and learned to change your ways to fit around your emotions because that’s what you’ve been born to do. Born to change and adapt and survive. You’ll make it survive.
So it doesn’t bother you. Despite the fact that everything in your heart yells at you in foolery, in a desperation to be acknowledged that it most certainly does.
And the days move on and dates on the calendar continue unstopping until the summer months welcome the winter ones until they yield their great leaves in surrender, bow their fiery colours for cold ones and take arms to a change inevitable and happening.
You watch the world embrace the frost and the edge of a softening glaze of white and silver and you listen as the sounds of happy summer children turn into carols that light up the sky in a brilliance that is as bright as the fairy lights that follow it.
You remain in your still world, watching the world change, adapt, repeat its cycle from the moment you feel the glaring heat on your flesh. Sweat wet against your skin changing to the soft snow beneath your fingertips, white as far as you could see and resembling the uncertainty of your future, bleaching your relationship in a single colour that made you nostalgic for the colours it couldn’t fathom any more.
And days turn into months and the world doesn’t stop for you despite your longing for it to wait- in a hope that one day you’ll catch up, stop stumbling like a shadow behind it and grip onto anything despite your dizzying fatigue because you simply couldn’t. You couldn’t adapt. You couldn’t change.
You couldn’t yield to a normality with Yoongi that was simply too bleak and dull in comparison once he’d shown you all the colours in the world.
How could you get used to the simplicity of a single thing when you’d felt it all?
It’s a familiar darkening night, the only difference being the change in the moon and the position of the blinking stars that watched on the repetition of the world under it.
The same darkening night, one that’s ripped away the warmth and sea of pinks and red and gold, distinguished the inferno that spread across the horizons and set the world ablaze into an emptiness, a dark aftermath that was nothing less of a still silence that rocked the earth.
And the stars, the stars were the only evidence that it had ever happened. Resting above heads and easily overlooked, the stars were the witness, the fall-out of the flames, now scattered like soft embers into the stillness of the onyx sky.
And it’s during these very nights that you begin to notice the way his apologies slowly start to disappear, how they meld into a mutual acceptance of how certain things will be in a fixture too permanent for either of you to change.
You begin to notice how his kisses have faded into mere imprints, sunk deep into the skin for you to rack your brain in remembrance of what they felt like when they were still fresh on the surface. You notice the lack of limbs around your body, his body etching further and further away on the bed until you’ve settled into a distance that you fear to cross.
You notice the vacancy of his voice in the room- how even in the morning with the vibrant sun, the house makes you shiver in something other than just the cold, lacking in his warming laugh and your giddy happiness, of days where you’d move across the kitchen in a choreography only the two of you could dance in.
Now, you feel like a phantom in your own home, gliding with a heavy heart as if searching the place in a desperation for memories. And Yoongi, Yoongi couldn’t even be called a ghost. His presence so void from the home that he was anything but the occupant that haunted it.
It’s one of those nights, emotions of something akin to loss mingling with the emptiness of the home and it’s suffocating silence, you continue to the stare at the door with the same naïve hope and foolish optimism that he’d be back soon- that he’d take his seat in the chair that almost stared back at you with a pity you couldn’t help but wallow in.
And the silence that followed you as you sighed, the screeching of your chair being the only sound to accompany you as you discarded the remains of your dinner reminded you of the things you’d long noticed and long since avoided, remaining mum about the paranoia’s that had settled in your chest and had crept into the little crevices of your body.
And you continued to think, grabbing a blanket from your room and treading back towards the couch to lower yourself, pulling the soft fabric under your chest as if to cocoon you, to fight away the stupid, stupid feelings of loss- what were you loosing? And still staring at the door in a sadness that wasn’t necessarily directed at anything but the goddamn door.
Time seemed to tick on and fatigue had long since settled into your temples and you fought to keep your eyes open, shaking off the way they draped over your eyes in a darkness you could lull yourself to sleep to but there was a yearning, a need for him to prove himself different today, to be awake when he did.
But the time didn’t slow and the creeping anxiety finding comfort inside you was enough to tell you that some things were bound to break no matter how hard you tried to preserve it.
And it was almost two and your back hurt from finding solace in the couch, tucking yourself into the plush material in the hopes that you could close your eyes and find the same magic, the same comfort that it used to.
You were desperate for some sort of normality, for it to just go back to the way it used to be but this house was full of memories and the man who lived in it a mere stranger.
And it hurt, broke your heart to think that the promises of the world and forever, of an endless love and an unconditional fairy tale was nothing more than a storybook, a fiction and a tale that would never be.
When had the title to claim the love of your life simply become a title with no claim? And you wondered, pondered under the night sky and the blinking stars in the hopes that it would qualm your distress.
In the hopes that it would offer you advice for the man that jumped at the opportunity to travel to the ends of the world and beyond for you- had beyond become too tiresome for him to continue?
And it was on the couch when you heard the keys click and the door creak open, heard him sigh and kick off his shoes and you only listened as he pattered through the home, his eyes merely resting on yours before passing you without even the word of acknowledgement, no reprimanding that you shouldn’t stay awake, no kiss on the forehead, no promise, nothing- nothing but the stillness and suffocation of a silence that said more than the words he lacked in wording to you.
You waited, waiting long before he’d retreated back into your bedroom without you till you broke down, till you made memories of a teary night on the couch that once held a history of a love story for the ages.
And you sobbed into the night, the twinkling stars staring at you with sympathy you didn’t want and you heaved, weeping sorrowfully because Min Yoongi was too far now and things weren’t the same.
You cried because he was your best friend, the person you confided in. Yet in your difficulties today, you were no one to him to weep your worries to.
And you cried, cried till your eyes were heavy with tears and sleep and everything in between and your woes fell deaf to his ears because behind closed doors, Yoongi slept and found solace in the world without you.
You weren’t losing Yoongi. How could you lose something you’d already lost? How could you preserve something that had long since been broken?
In time, you’d simply force yourself to adapt to the constant changes that were Yoongi and his attitude towards you. You’d stopped questioning the way things were and why there were and simply accepted the reality that things weren’t the same and ultimately, would never be again.
The emotion you’d tried so hard to suppress, the growing fear that you’d tried to stifle, tried breaking apart was resurfacing. In the end, behind closed doors and hidden frowns there was the undeniable reality that had you shaking your head, spending moments in front of the mirror to deny in order to drown down your anxiety.
There was the simplicity of a few words that weighed down your heart like the many- a few words that you’d forced yourself to look away from but there was no denying the undeniable, a reality so very real and despite it being deep as the bergs that bred in secrecy- it was like the smoke of a fire you couldn’t hide- one you couldn’t run from.
A simple truth, an inevitable happening: he had fallen out of love with you.
In the end, the truth congregated- gathered like clouds and came for you on dark nights and even darker days. Even the sunshine couldn���t act as a veneer anymore to the change that was inevitable like the sun setting above the horizons and the night appearing, night after night without fail.
You could regret, regret the days you’d taken with him for granted or regret the way things had become. You could long all you wanted for a world painted in colours once you couldn’t fathom them anymore.
Despite the world seemingly mostly black and white these days, your relationship with Yoongi unspoken and dulled down- there was a regret that burned deep inside you, clenched within your core because outside your dreary days is a world that moves spontaneously.
It pains you, to watch Yoongi belong to that world of colours and ignore that everything wasn’t okay. It pains you after seeing, after feeling all those colours, to be told to settle for shades of grey.
And when you wake up in the morning you aren’t surprised that the bed is completely cold and you don’t need to turn away from the ceiling to know that Yoongi’s already left and there’s not a single memo that could have reminded you that he was ever here to begin with.
Achingly, you force yourself up, running your hands over your face and sighing into the emptiness of the room before removing the covers off your body and readying yourself for another day filled with mundane tasks in a silent home filled with your conundrum of thoughts.
You almost dread how you’ve been given the day off work, a soft pat on the back from your boss who claimed you’d been overworking yourself and should take the day off.
However, looking around the house you wish almost longingly that you were back in the security of your workplace, distracting yourself amongst the papers and co-workers. Anything but here. Anywhere but the place that day by day felt less and less like home.
You sighed into your coffee mug, staring into the same kitchen that would be bumbling with noise had it been a few months back; Yoongi making his way over to peck your forehead, your temple, anything, everything, on the days he’d lie in and take comfort in the curves of your body instead but it’d been months and his habits had faded away and you felt stupid standing there making food for two because yours hadn’t yet.
“I should take him some.” You say to yourself, your fingers fumbling around the containers as you try to reassure yourself that this way okay, that you always used to bring him food and surprise him at the studio because he loved it. Why would it be any different now? “He probably hasn’t eaten.”
And despite having everything changed, if there was one thing about Yoongi and his personality was his forgetfulness and how caught up he’d get in his work to forget the simple necessities he needed like eating.
Any other day you might have texted him but this wasn’t like any other days and your phone was as void as ever in a silence he seemed adamant to maintain.
You were aware that you were talking to yourself, almost chanting the words as if they would ease the fear of doing this trivial gesture that should feel like nothing to you but do. You hoped that this, this could be taking the first steps to at least try and salvage the bits of your relationship while you could. You hoped maybe this would be the start of a new beginning, maybe he’d come back to you. Maybe.
And you don’t know what possesses you, what takes over you but your standing in front of his studio with a bag filled with all his favourite foods.
You can’t help but feel childish, like this wasn’t something you should be doing but here you were, a foot away from his studio door with an irrational fear of what would happen when you entered.
You almost felt like you were suffocating. Here, entering a room with a man that was practically a stranger to you now with an emotion that felt too much like the end. In hindsight, you could have said you’d known, that you’d felt it coming and maybe it was for the best but in that very moment, after months of uncertainty, you were firm in believing that today would be different.
After all, something had to break to allow change; whether that be you or your relationship.
With a heavy heart and a shuddering sigh, you closed your eyes and reached to turn the handle to the door that you knew all too well, spending far too many nights crashed on the couch when Yoongi overworked into the night or listening to the unfinished music fill the room- basking in the security that was simply your boyfriend.
This time, the door creaked and groaned under your touch and the magic that you’d always felt in this room that was all too Yoongi were lost and you stared at his back, you were always staring at his back, watching him get further and further away from you.
His face was scrunched up in the way you knew was utter concentration, his headphones around his neck and staring into his lyrics completely and utterly oblivious to the world around him.
Suddenly, you weren’t so sure of yourself anymore and the confidence you had to salvage the remnants of a dying relationship had withered away.
It struck you just how much you didn’t belong in this world, how much he’d pushed you away and just how much distance had grown between you that the few feet that separated the two of you now couldn’t compare in comparison.
The studio had been a place that you had associated with fond memories, yet standing in the middle of it all with not so fond feelings stirring inside your belly made you realise the sheer emptiness of it all; that everything was simply a reminder and there was nothing you could do that would change that.
You felt like you were staring at a picture.
You could remember every feeling, every laughter that you’d felt captured into a single moment adorned with great smiles and even greater emotions but standing here in the aftermath of memories cemented how you couldn’t recreate pictures.
No matter how long you stared at it, it was just a remnant of a single past moment amongst the countless of many futures.
You coughed. He turned. And you watched his brow furrow, staring at your figure in confusion as if he couldn’t comprehend why you were here.
“What are you doing here?” and his voice is void of its usual pleasant surprise and it cements just how much has changed between you and though you expected every bit of it, it doesn’t stop your heart from dropping. He sounded exasperated, tired.
He’s tired of you, a little voice in your head said and you couldn’t lie and say you didn’t know but unlike Yoongi, you weren’t tired of him and this was your last attempt, your little act of selfishness- holding onto him because you wanted to slow down the moment you had to let go.
“I brought food.” You said softly, stating the obvious and pulling up the contents in your hand to show him the bag filled with all the delicious meals that only makes your stomach churn but your particular response isn’t the answer to the question he’s looking for.
Here, staring back at a stranger it’s obvious that you don’t know this man and his brown orbs scream nothing but unfamiliarity to you now- he was asking why you were here. His real question left unasked in the air but one you could read with ease. Why were you still trying?
“Oh,” Yoongi says and he’s looking anywhere but at you when you leave it on his side. “Thanks.”
Was that it? Was he supposed to say something? Were you? But you know it’s your cue to leave when he doesn’t say anything else, when he doesn’t acknowledge you and doesn’t ask you to stay but instead moves to put his headphones back on.
You wonder then, just when did your relationship result in this? Just when did his warm affections become nothing more than cold glances and you can’t help but stare at him with a longing in your chest, a desire to stomp on all the floors and pull a tantrum because you just want to go back, you just want him to love.
You wanted him to look at you, come back with the same vibrant smile you were used to.
You wanted him to love you but fuck, did he even know what loving you was when you were sure he’d fallen out of it?
You stared at his back. You hated staring at his back.
You hated how closed off he’d become, how your attempts at trying to rekindle your relationship bounced off the same goddamn back. You didn’t even realise you were crying, hot tears forging paths down your warm cheeks. Ironic because he’d done nothing but make you feel cold all these months.
And from the way his body stiffens when a sob breaks from your chest and fills the room, from the way he stops himself from looking at you, a deep sigh resounding against your harsh breaths as if he knew it was coming, you know he’s heard.
“Look at me.” You sob angrily, a fierce fire bubbling in your stomach because enough was enough. Because you couldn’t keep pretending, couldn’t keep ignoring.
You couldn’t do this to yourself. You couldn’t continue to live unhappily because you were trying to save something that didn’t want to be saved. “Just this once, look at me.”
And he does and there’s enough emotion in Yoongi’s own eyes for you to know that this is it, that there was no going back from this.
It almost surprises you though, when you see a deep sadness coat over his orbs, a pain present and upfront and inevitable. Even if he didn’t love you now, he had once and letting you go meant letting go of all your memories; of all the things he’d fallen for and all the things he’d adored.
Letting you go was like burning a photobook of a life he’d long since outlived and grown out of. The only reason he’d kept on so long was because of the little attachment he had left, because you had been there when the days and years moved on and when the summer months welcomed the winter ones.
You were there on the same nights, listening with him when the sounds of happy summer children turned into carols that lit up the sky in a brilliance that was as bright as the fairy lights that followed it. You were there, with him, under the same sky that had witnessed it all. The same sky that could retell your history like the stars it had unfolded beneath.
Letting you go was like burning a photobook of a life he’d long since outlived and grown out of but him damned, he didn’t want to let you go because he was scared to make a new one.
“I’m so sick of this.” You cried, gesturing to the space between you and him. “Who are we fooling? Ourselves?”
And you didn’t need an answer and Yoongi only soaked in your appearance, tear-stricken and racking horribly. Your big sparkling eyes had been dulled down with the tears he had caused you, a fire dancing across the softs of your cheeks in a way he knew was only anger, disappointment.
And he hated it. He wished he could take you in his arms and mumble away your woes but he didn’t love you in the way he had and he felt so guilty for falling out of love with someone who’d taught him what love was.
He hated how he was the one who had been the one to suffocate your relationship even after multiple tries when you were the one that had breathed life into his mundane world.
“We don’t even look at each other anymore.” You whispered and he hated how fragile you looked, how the strongest woman he knew crumbled in a state that was as sad as this. And you hated it yourself, hated yourself for succumbing to this. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pretending that everything’s okay when we both know it isn’t. It’s just not fair.”
“If I went wrong, if something happened, just tell me. Just tell me how we can fix this” You sobbed desperately and this was it, this was the last and you knew all too well that you couldn’t fix anything and there was nothing you’d done wrong.
Now, here, in that moment, you drank Yoongi in like it was the last time you’d ever be intoxicated.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, because he was sorry and he’d forever be sorry and there was nothing he could do now. Even then he could hardly get himself to look at you.
Despite anticipating his words with every ounce of salt in your body, every hope crushed the moment you’d first walked in through door, it did nothing to ease your pounding heart and you couldn’t stop it when your lip quivered and you had to just stand there embracing yourself when the onslaught of tears came flooding in.
You didn’t know how long you had stood there but it was enough time for you to realise that there was nothing more either of you could say now.
After months of beating around the bush, you’d finally addressed the elephant in the room, finally cut through the tension that had built up in your home and scouted the replies to questions you already knew the answers to.
You and Yoongi were breaking up. After years together, you’d continue apart like individual people on individual paths.
“I’m sorry too,” You said once you’d composed yourself. You were sorry because you hadn’t tried hard enough or maybe because you had longed this out for far too long. You were sorry because you couldn’t keep all the promises you made to him, that he couldn’t keep his.
Sorry because after months of silence where you’d spent endless nights going over what you’d say to him and then finally arriving here- you’d said nothing. Because there was nothing.
Because more was said in the unsaid.
Because he didn’t have to say any more for you to know because you couldn’t scream and cry when it’d been coming and it was more of a matter of when you ended it than how you’d amend it.
You don’t linger much after that, stay only a few more moments to soak in his milky skin, his pretty brown eyes that searched anywhere but yours, his dark hair before turning to walk out of the door with a greater purpose than when you had entered it.
You’d missed the way Yoongi opened his mouth to say something, how his stomach churned at the sight of your food and despite having turned back to his music, there was nothing he could focus on more than you.
He should have been happy. He should have been relieved but his heart feels heavier than ever and he regretted that he couldn’t stare at you enough, his first love, before you disappeared in an air colder than the one he’d given you.
He was a coward but he regrets how he can’t even cower in his emotions before you. A woman made of fire and ice and everything in between.
It doesn’t take you long to gather your stuff.
It doesn’t take you long to collect all the pieces in your- his home. Bundling up all the things that were you and yours before leaving the house in a manner that resembled the state before you’d met him, back when your shirts hadn’t started appearing in his drawers, when your toothbrush wasn’t placed next to his and back when the webs of his life weren’t entwined with yours.
And you can’t help but stare at this sad, sad place that you’d once called home; can’t help but trace over the furniture that had kept you company in months of solitude, accompanied you through bursts of tears and anger and though they might not remember it now, even times of great love and adoration that had once brightened your world in a comparison that could make even the sun yield.
You were quick on your feet, gathering with haste and dread and everything falls apart in your arms but you’re adamant on holding yourself together while you can, stubborn in forcing yourself to be level-headed because you didn’t want to be here when Yoongi got here.
His studio had been your last goodbye and there was no time for treacly sentiments if he came back and encountered you. Knowing him, he’d probably spend the night there anyway, his practice in avoiding you almost an art now. There would be no mistakes, no sentiments.
No weeping would change facts and your feelings despite heavy on your chest and though it felt like the world was falling apart, they were small, insignificant; minuscule against the vastness of the universe that you were nothing against.
Your existence was a speck of dust, your feelings yours and yours alone- one you couldn’t share, one you couldn’t voice.
A pain that was so very individual, so very yours that in the haste to grip onto your things, you’d dropped the strength that had held onto your emotions, unchained them, released an intensity that was wild, untameable.
The realisation of just how alone you were hit you so intensely that you could feel it burn in your core, a desire to rip out your insides and plead them to obey, to reason, please.
But feelings were wild, untameable and they were products of the heart and no matter how many times your mind concluded logically that this would pass, all things do, your heart felt like it was in pieces within your chest and God, you would do anything to make yourself feel whole again.
They’d never told you that love could hurt so hard, that the aftermath of love was just as intense as falling.
No one, no one could teach you heartbreak in the way you’d learn from experience. No one could teach you the magic of falling in love, the vulnerability, the passion, the intensity that could rival a flame and was as magical as the Garden of Eden, with every emotion as vast as the number of flowers that were adorned in it.
No one could teach you loneliness until the veneer that had shrouded your sorrows in a pink cloud of love had washed away in wisps of grey that magic was fleeting and love was as deceiving as the thorns that tempted naïve seekers. An attempt to grasp beauty, a futile venture to seek Eudaimonia.
The aftermath of love was one that was as bitter as it was sweet and the remnants made you feel empty, hollow and as vacant as the world you surrounded yourself in; especially when you hadn’t come out of love and only witnessed the dark truth and a cruelty of what happened when someone else did.
You were falling apart.
Your breath ragged and harsh and this house screamed finality. Vacant-looking and cold.
This would be the last time you stepped foot into this house, the last time you breathed into it, bred life into it and you didn’t know if the attachment was to the love couch in the middle of the room or the love you’d made on that couch that made you less wanting to let it go, to leave.
You were severing ties with things you’d familiarised yourself with, severing ties with years, severing ties with attachment- severing ties with Yoongi.
It would be the last time you would see Yoongi.
You wondered where love went when it died and almost laughed at yourself, a bubble of lacking laughter flittering in your chest because you were going to the same graveyard to be tucked in the very same coffin.
Who cared where love went when it died? Wherever it went, you were going too.
You couldn’t say that you were happy.
What was happiness if not momentary? But in hindsight, it was easy to see that the choice that he made, the choice that you made was something that allowed you to be happier.
It was a privilege, a liberty that was allowed to you after suffering for so long. It was an emotion so foreign, so invasive that you didn’t know when enough time had passed that you’d allowed it to crawl, travelling through blind spots and breaching apparent sight into the cracks that needed filling.
In time, you’d learn that memories made after him were memories as precious as they were with him and you didn’t need to feel guilty, gnawing on days that maybe, maybe, somewhere he’d made a mistake he’d come running to amend.
Gone were the days were you wallowed in self-pity, in self-hatred and clung onto your insecurities with the idea that they were the only things you were allowed to keep.
Now, your chest felt lighter, breathing was easy and the concept of feeling better after time had done its work on you, after hours turned into days and days into months into years- that this emotion wasn’t a foe but a friend come after long nights was a concept befriended.
Your try at being somewhat happy was overdue and though brief as all moments are, it was something that made you think that maybe the wait was worth it.
It wasn’t as if breaking up with him had meant a break up with love either. His absence didn’t scare you from the emotion and neither did its scars frighten you from approaching it time and time again.
You knew love in more forms than he had given to you and you didn’t need his to know, didn’t need his love in a dependency that was unhealthy and poisoning to know that even in the absence of receiving, you could give in abundance.
You gave it in the affection you had for your parents. You felt it in the adoration you had for the sky, the ground, your home and your cat and your work.
You knew love in the smiles of grinning faces, you knew love in the air around you and in the breaths you took throughout the day- platonic, materialistic, familial- you knew love because you’d been around it. It was a shame then that he simply hadn’t been in it with you.
It had been two years since you’d broken up with Yoongi.
Two years since you’d stormed out the home that the two of you had shared and found solace at your best friend’s house, sobbing well into her shoulder and allowing her to hold you, being the little stability that you needed, a pillar on whom you could rely on when your walls fell.
Two years since you’d asked her to pick up the last of your things, instructing her to leave the keys on the kitchen counter when she did and then residing with her until you could find your own place, gradually filling up the vacancy of your new apartment with things that were you and you alone.
Two years since you’d quit your job, tired of the mundane tasks, of the repetitive nature of days crouched over the computer, nodding insincerely at scoldings only to repeat the same things months on end in the room that resembled a prison cell.
Sick of routine, you take up spontaneity.
Grinning when you capture pictures that reflect the freedom in nature, stories behind old eyes and beaming smiles. Days are spent travelling, from wedding to wedding, tomorrow the lake, the day after the sea.
You voyaged from people to people, capturing the essence of one’s world into another’s.
You weren’t happy, who really was? But your life was happier and the air around you was softer, the colours in your home bright as if to aluminate the days you stay in bed, staring hours on end at the ceiling unable to find your path and lost as to where to go.
Two years since you’d pieced your world back together, gluing edge to edge with nothing but time on your hands and as if to apologise for your sorrows, the world was patient and allowed you to steady yourself again, allowed you the years, allowed you to grow and gain and change and learn.
You learned.
You learned with time that you were better than what you had accustomed yourself to, better than the long nights and dark days and better than what you’d been given and so you were allowed to go and demand more.
Two years was a long time and in that time, though you hadn’t forgotten Yoongi’s face or his solemn touch and his gummy smile, you’d learned that you were simply better without it.
You hadn’t had any awkward encounters and you avoid all the places you visited together, avoided the area around your old home and not once did he reach out and not once did you but the fondness in your heart was still present and despite everything, you couldn’t help but think that he still had always been the best for you.
Your first in many things and last in others, with Yoongi moments were countless but it had been two years and your heart didn’t ache at his name.
Your eyes could wash over his pictures in fondness over spite and despite it being two years and despite you having made your peace with your breakup, you couldn’t squash down the little bittersweet nostalgia and the acknowledgement that no matter how many dates you went on, how many people you met, there was a part of you that only ever wanted to love him.
A part of you that only ever wanted to be loved by him.
And here you were, years later, the woman you had always aspired to be. A woman that knew no chains and felt emancipation like the wind between the locks of your hair.
Frenzied, ungovernable and every bit free, you were achieving the world, beyond the promises he couldn’t keep to you. A woman who amounted to nothing less than the universe with a presence that demanded attention yet there was the void somewhere in your chest that you had suppressed over the years that demanded greater caring, a filling that was Yoongi shaped and unforgiving.
You could pretend that you’d moved on completely, could pretend that his name didn’t make your heart sigh in contempt, lost in worlds of what ifs and what could have been.
You could pretend that even years down the line he had no effect on you, pretend that silent moments sat on the sofa watching reruns of your favourite show didn’t sometimes lead to moments with him.
You could pretend that you didn’t still call into your apartment to inform whoever you were home despite there being no one there, pretend that buildings like the dingy café around the corner where’d you first met didn’t remind you of him.
You could pretend a lot of things but you’d be a fool to think that you were anything more than an actor. Actors pretended and what you felt didn’t feel like pretence.
You weren’t holding onto fragments, weren’t cradling them to your chest in an unwillingness to let go. You simply couldn’t delete the effects he’d on you, the changes you’d made as a result of being with him.
You simply couldn’t scare away the phantom that had been your first love and had learned as a result to live with him rather than hiding from him.
Time hadn’t made you forget. It had made it bearable. And though absence had made your heart grow fonder, history was a reminder that things of the past couldn’t be erased.
When you wake up, you simply can’t pin the bubble in your stomach and the soft jitters in your chest to a particular emotion. You can’t place word to face but there is something in the air that screams nostalgia.
All the daily norms that present themselves in the way the light bounces of the walls, how the house feels refreshingly warm and your cat lazy slings between your legs in her morning greetings seems nothing if not odd.
And you don’t know why you do and in hindsight you could blame it on the odd feelings that stir within your chest in a restless agitation to want pleased that you find yourself staring at the old coffee shop that you’d first met Yoongi with a little more than just longing.
You’d spent two years walking past it, never offering it more than a measly glance and a fond smile but there was something almost magnetic, appealing about the store in all its old and dinginess that has you standing before it today.
That after two years of religiously avoiding the café did your heart ache wistfully at the sight in a want to relieve old memories and feel emotions as ablaze as the first time you’d entered it.
You wondered if the feelings you’d buried were still present in the little quaint building, abundant with importance or whether time had nulled its flames and your reach for familiarity had simply wandered away like all good things do.
The café despite its overall unappealing exterior had always been your favourite. You had looked past the falling sign and the uneven canopy and found solace in the grounded coffee scent and the little bakery tucked in the back, finding home in wooden seats and warmed beverage that presented you with comfort on winter days and summer nights.
It was your little secret that hid in the corner in the heart of the town, almost always empty and quiet and very often overlooked.
It was your treasure, the same place where’d you’d met him, finding shelter on a rainy day that soaked through your clothes and had you shivering.
It was the same place you’d locked gazes with him, albeit unfamiliar then but familiar with the dullness in his eyes that had you forcing your way through his walls and layers to extend a friendly hand out.
It was the very same place that had you returning back on dates, familiarising yourself with the seat next to the window and the menu and him until it was practically tradition to sit across from each other on casual nights spent talking aimlessly until it closed.
So returning after two years of being away made you feel apologetic, feeling as though you’d neglected the place in your want to avoid the pain that came with reminiscing and almost repentant in your actions as you stepped inside, knowing nothing had changed and there was still the same wooden tables and the same barrister at the front but still washing your eyes over to drink it all in and playback memories of times before things had changed.
You walked over to the front and smile at the barrister in acknowledgement, wondering if she remembered you and by the way her grin grew and she looked almost surprised you think maybe she does.
“Hi,” You breathed. Your stomach felt a lot better than this morning and it struck you after finding yourself here so abruptly, overwhelmed with familiar smells of pastries and coffees that your want for a beverage was only stronger than ever. “Can I have a-“
“I’ve got it.” She interrupted and a large smile played on her lips as you stared at her in mild amusement.
“How did you-?” You trailed off, wondering how she could possibly remember your order after all these years of being away. Sure you’d been a regular customer but the odds that she’d remember your usual was almost touching in a sense.
“Boss often said we’d lost our best customer,” She replied, a strong glint in her eyes as she busied herself in preparing your drink, her voice soft as she spoke to you. “We don’t get many people but you were here always here without fail so we thought you’d moved away.”
“I’m sorry,” You offer and you really are, this place was like home to you and you’d avoided it in the want to let the past be the past. “It’s been a busy few years.” You told her and it’s half a lie because you have been busy. You been busy in finding yourself, in getting to know yourself and live by yourself.
You’d been busy in getting to know the little liberties that had made you you before you’d known Yoongi- the ones you’d lost in loving him and though you were past the point in your life where you wallowed in self-misery and nostalgia, you’d simply been carried away.
“I can imagine.” She sighed, finishing off the lasts of your coffee before turning to you with a slighter sadder smile. “He still comes here, you know.”
And you know exactly who’s she’s talking about and you can’t help the way your heart leaps at the mention of him, at the thought that he still comes to the same place that was important to you as it was to him, sitting down in the same cosy spot right by the window to mull over his music after long nights of needed solitude.
“Often looks like he’s looking for someone as if any day will be different than the previous,“ She continues, knowing the look on your face and despite only being acquaintances through the cafe knowing more about your love story than the rest.
And when she turns to you, she’s grinning wider than ever, almost glad that of all days, today was the day you’d decided to show up. And she hands you your coffee before she speaks again, and you look down to realise that it’s exactly how you like it, creamy and milky as always and years could pass but your taste most definitely hasn’t.
“I think he can stop looking now.”
And you don’t have any time to really ponder on her last words as she thanks you again, shaking her head at your questioning smile before you turn around, automatically moving towards the area you know best when you see him.
And its been two years but your stomach does backflips and your chest heaves and for a second you forget how to breathe. Your throat feels as if it’ll clam up anytime soon but he looks more beautiful than the last time you’d laid eyes on him.
And he sits there, by the window with dark hair and even darker eyes that contrast greatly with his milky skin, staring out into the streets and sipping at his coffee with his face pulled in a characteristic you know all too well is to show that he’s thinking.
Two years is a long time and he looks slightly older, more mature and his hair hangs low and brushes against his eyes, more rings adorned on his fingers and there’s something about him that screams difference, stranger but has your heart soaring in familiarity because god, you were a liar if you thought that you weren’t still in love with him and seeing him did damage to your strengthened heart. Even now, you could stare at him forever.
And you don’t know whether it’s the stubbornness to sit in the same spot that you’ve always sat, unwilling to sit any place else or simply to talk to him, to hear his voice that gives you strength, holding onto your cup with a firmness that is new to you when it comes to him and marching over with a sense of purposefulness that even you can’t place.
“Is this seat taken?”
And his head whips to look at you with his eyes blown wide and his pink lips parted in disbelief. He could recognise your voice anywhere.
He doesn’t speak immediately, rather taking you in standing before him after years had done its work on you for a few moments. You offered him a small smile in encouragement and his stomach churned unpleasantly because you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid his eyes on.
You were standing there before him with a cup of coffee, your hair shorter, your smile wider and he hated that in your last few months of being together he had stolen that from you. He hated how he’d made you feel, hated the way his stomach churned in guilt, in regret every time he thought of you.
The way you stood only indicated independence, promise and you were strong and holding yourself together with a new profound confidence that left him speechless, repentant for the wonders that were you and the ungratefulness that was him in ever letting you get away.
He could sit there and drink you in, mumble apologises into your skin for the rest of his days and search for any indication in your brown orbs for a hope, any hope that you still loved him.
He could call out for you, reach out for your hand and bring you home, re-find the corners he loved best and re-explore and voyage across the pages in a story that was yours.
He wants to apologise, wants to tell you about the mistakes he made. He wants you to understand him in the way he didn’t understand him, retell his account of those last moments. He wants to tell you about the days where he struggled, the days where he didn’t, he wants to confide in you in the ways he did time ago because this, you had once been his best friend and his world.
The thought is almost dizzying and instead he replies with an even smaller smile that resembles a grimace before gesturing to the chair in front of him because there is time for that and one day he’ll let you know. “Not at all.” Never for you, he wants to reply.
And it almost gives him déjà vu of the first time you’d met, when you’d fought for the seat in front of him and he’d given a slight nod unknowing of the years fate had planned for the two of you, only these were different circumstances.
In a way, he thinks that maybe you are meeting again for the first time, two years was a long time and it was apparent, with the way you approached him with nothing but loose ties and fragmented memories that you were two different people.
And it’s almost painful to think that had it been a few years back you would have bumbled in with a smile radiant enough to make the sun look dull and you would plant a kiss to his lips and you two would sit there, sit here in the very same spot by the window, addicted to each other’s presence.
He had learnt a lot these past few years. From the moment he’d come home to find your things missing to the disappointed stare your friend had given him when she’d collected the last of your bits that somewhere along the lines he had gone wrong.
He hadn’t been wrong to fall out of love but wrong enough to realise that it was a mistake to fall out in love with you when all he wanted to do was bundle you into his arms at night, chat aimlessly on the days he was overridden with frustration and lost for inspiration.
He realised months on, when he’d fall asleep on his desk not wanting to go home because what was home if it wasn’t with you that he didn’t feel relieved, he didn’t feel less burdened without you but rather empty after years of feeling so full with love.
Heartbreak was not a one way street and it took him as much as time as it did you for things about you to stop bothering him and though he still searched for you in the café, always going in case of finding you, he figured you’d made your peace without him.
And if there was one thing he was grateful for, was that made you’d realised that he had never been good enough for you and he hadn’t valued you enough when you were worth more than anything in this universe.
No date he went gave him the same feeling, the same excitement and no music he made felt genuine enough but he’d realised that it was his short fallings that had cost him, something he’d learn to live with yet years on staring at your face, slightly more lined with age and maturity did he realise just how much had been at stake.
“So you still like your coffee black then?” You joked and you couldn’t help but feel relieved when you see a slight quirk of his lips as he stared at his cup sheepishly.
“Some things don’t change do they?” He shrugs before raising his own eyebrows at your cup that you pull towards your chest defensively, almost shocked at yourself when your laughter leaves your chest so genuinely.
“I guess they don’t, Min Yoongi.” You smile at him and he smiles back but there’s something odd in the air, something different about the way you hold and present yourself but it’s obvious with the way he stares at you and you right back at him that maybe there’s a little more than just your coffee that hasn’t changed.
“You look different,” He says finally and you can’t help but stare at him questioningly. Did he mean your appearance? “Better.” And the way he frowns slightly and his eyes avert from yours do you realise that he feels guilty.
You open your mouth to speak, ready to wave off his doubts. “I’m sorry,” and it surprises you when you both speak at the same time, laughing lightly at the interruption and ready to continue when he shakes his head at you.
“What could you be sorry about?” he says, looking at you regretfully. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have let it build up like that and I shouldn’t have let you leave like that either.”
You sighed, after so long of thinking about what you would say to him when the time came, you felt oddly empty. “I think maybe it was both our faults. None of us said anything. I think more than anything I was just scared of letting you go.”
“I was scared of letting you go too.” Yoongi whispered and you looked at him, encouraging him to go on because you needed your closure, you needed answers for a time where he’d refused to give you any. “I was being selfish.”
He looked at you then, eyes filled with raw emotion that are apologetic and gentle and has you choking up. “I just wanted you to be there even when I didn’t think I loved you anymore. Losing you was like losing my security so I avoided it and I’m just- I’m sorry we ever got to the point; for doing that to you.”
“You were my best friend.” You told him and he sighed audibly and it’s shaky but you march on relentlessly. “I would have understood if you had just talked to me. I hated that nothing was the same because I loved you more than anything. I would have ended everything in a heartbeat if it meant that you were happy, that we could still talk.”
“I’m sorry,” Yoongi tells you and this time it’s genuine and unlike the time where you’d stormed off and disappeared from his life.
“I’m sorry too,” You smile, shaking your head because you accept his apology and there were things that you had gone wrong in too. “I guess its better this way.” And you don’t want to say that because everything in your heart screams that you still love him, that you couldn’t really cope with anything but loving him and you could live with the fact that he didn’t love you back.
“Is it really?” He whispers, so softly that you almost miss it but you’re sure, you’re sure that he’s said it and maybe, maybe he does still love you and maybe these years were what you needed to make the heart grow fonder. These years are what you needed to grow, to realise your worth as individuals and your strength in being together.
And when you look at him now, he, his own person and you, your own, you’re not as insecure to think that he his your entire world and you are nothing without him.
And you take your time in speaking, take your time in conjuring an answer to fit to reply to him and when you do, he looks at you, patient and waiting and you offer him a smile and a reply that isn’t absolute but provides him with a hope that leaves a smile, a genuine smile lingering on his lips.
“I guess we’ll see.”
And you walk away from the coffee shop, glad you had entered it in the first place with a lighter chest and a blooming smile that makes even your friends question.
“I’ll see you later?” and the implication that you want to see him later, that you don’t want this to end but rather to start has him nodding fondly, glad that after years of searching for you again, he hasn’t found you but rather a new version that leaves him excited and just as eager as the first time you had met.
“I’ll see you later.” He promises, watching you twirl away with a light wave before catching the eye of the barrister who’s absolutely beaming from ear to ear.
A promise that is one absolute that he can definitely offer you.
The promise of later comes sooner than you expect. You find yourself in the coffee shop without fail every afternoon, a brighter step, a bigger grin and a world that wasn’t too large for you to fit into.
He was there too. And you’d end your day welcoming the barrister who’d have your order ready for you, maintaining small conversation before your eyes wandered away and you’d find him tucked away in the corner as if waiting for you.
You’d find yourself sitting in front of him, making up for lost time and re-establishing everything about each other, exploring and discovering and you realise that you had never fallen out of love and seeing the same thing that had once broken your heart reflected in his own orbs- you realise maybe he didn’t either and rather had wandered off lost where familiarity had bred contempt and absence had birthed love.
And it’s inevitable how you two fall in love again, slowly and just as deeply as the first time. He doesn’t promise you anything and there’s nothing guaranteed but the security you feel when he stares at you in wonder is overwhelming.
And you’re glad, glad that you aren’t bound by obligation and sentimental vows but rather in the very purity of simply wanting to be together.
“You took up photography?” Yoongi asks you when you’re huddled up in front of your laptop and camera over a cup of coffee, sighing at the countless images needed edited. You look up to find him staring at you curiously, his eyebrows slightly furrowed because he was discovering new things every day.
“I hated my old job.” You tell him after a long moment, bringing the drink to your lips before indulging in its sheer creaminess, watching him watch you as you hummed in content. “I was just forcing myself to do the same thing every day and so I quit and took up something I actually liked doing.”
“And I like this,” You smile, “I love taking pictures of nature, of people, of everything- every day is different, every person is different and it’s beautiful really, being able to capture every emotion into an instant.”
Like every art came freedom and with photography you had the autonomy to do what you liked and the world to do what you liked with it.
“Can I see some of your work?” Yoongi asks and you stare at him, searching his face only to find that he’s genuinely curious, genuinely interested in the things that you find passion in.
And you realise, not so much as daunting as you think, that you’re slowly letting him back in. what he asks is an innocent question but there’s a sense of intimacy, something almost invasive that makes you realise the extent of your closeness.
You remember days of when he’d ask you to come down to his studio, staring at you with anticipation as he let you listen to his music because it was important to him. By sharing his art he was allowing you to see glimpses of his life. He was allowing you to see his story in other means that were beyond just him.
You understand then, nodding your head in affirmative and watching in the same daunting anticipation as he scrolls through your photos. And he stares in awe, eyeing at the pictures as if he’s trying to gain memories of lost time and you understand then that you’re fine with this.
You are fine with letting him back in after years of being apart and it’s not so scary to realise that this is a start of a new journey in the same love story that in hindsight, never did really end.
Unbeknownst to you, staring at your pictures and seeing your drive in shaping your life to fit the mould that you wanted inspires him and when he returns to his studio that night, it’s your very passion that makes music come easy to him.
“You have a cat?” Yoongi questions, grimacing lightly as he steps into your household for the first time, taking a step further in your new established relationship by dropping you home when he sees that thing twirl between your legs and purr contently at your side when you nestle into the couch.
“Isn’t she pretty?” You ask back, grinning up at Yoongi who doesn’t take his eyes away from her. She hisses at him, scowling deeply when he tries to take a step forward and you laugh at the affronted look Yoongi gives her, offended that he wasn’t even allowed to come near you.
“She hates me.” Yoongi deadpans and you grin because watching both your cat warily eye Yoongi in the same way he eyes her back as if to challenge one another is absolutely beautiful.
Months later, it’s a sight to behold when you find Yoongi asleep on the couch, having given him a set of keys, to see the same feline snuggled up on his chest, purring away as if she hadn’t spent the afternoon snobbishly turning away from his affections.
You had done your growing, he had done him and it’s different. You’re different. And you find a greater independence in voicing your own concerns and holding your ground in moments of anger.
You’re allowed to take up space. You were not an inconvenience. And so when you and Yoongi argue, you don’t cradle emotions to your chest and hope for moments of fury to disperse, but rather yell and scream and cry until there’s an understanding that allows you to grow, to move on, to learn.
“I don’t like it.” You sighed, sitting at the edge of your bed after a long day of arguing. Yoongi pretending to be asleep. “I don’t like it when you sleep at your studio because I feel like you forget that I exist.”
And it doesn’t take him long before he bundles you up in his arms, kissing your forehead because the anger has disappeared into the air and there’s nothing less he wants to do but to argue with you.
“I don’t forget that you exist. I don’t want you to think that.” Yoongi reassures you and you stare up at his long eyelashes and he tucks a hair behind your ear. “I’ll try come home earlier.”
And these aren’t promises but he keeps them anyway and he can’t help but feel a burst of adoration when you two actually sit in front of each other at dinner, babbling away because he’s home early and your showing him your work and he breathes in your inspiration.
It doesn’t take you long to love him and rather you build your relationship in between cracks and corners and you piece them back together in an adaption that is refined and strong.
And so when he kisses you, taking your lips as if there were his own, you realise with him you are whole and there is no other than him you would love.
And when he makes love to you, after years of being apart, your soul drawn to his as if you were forged from the burning ends of the same stars and your souls star-crossed and inseparable, you realise that there is nothing better than him loving you.
“I love you,” Yoongi whispers to you and you turn back to him surprised, it had only been a few months since you had gotten back together and you knew that the idea of saying that you loved each other was a daunting prospect.
“You-“ You start off but can’t possibly end because he’s repeating it over and over onto your skin, lips mouthing the phrase into your lips, your neck, your chest.
“I love you so much,” and he means it, and wonders how he could possibly fall out of love from someone as beautiful of you and he assures you that everything he says is only the truth because he’d be damned if he ever let you get away again.
“Show me.”
And love was not infinite and emotions had ways of dying out but you and Yoongi had proved all ends and if soulmates existed, you were undoubtedly his. You had found yourselves inseparable by a bond that was as strong as you allowed it.
And after nights of living alone, separated from one another and adamant on change and tastes of different waters, he was certain that it was in between your legs, bundled into your arms and smiles was where he wanted to be.
You had started your selfhood by walking away, proved your love in the letting go.
You had finally found each other again after a long winter. Two hearts connected like one, sure of finding the homes to which they belonged.
#bts#bts scenarios#bts smut#yoongi#yoongi scenarios#bts reactions#yoongi x reader#yoongi scenario#anagapesis
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why 151115 is so important
hi, semi here! thought I’d make a post about 151115 for B.A.P fans who joined the fandom after the lawsuit. this will partly be factual, and partly my personal take on it.
B.A.P all filed a lawsuit on 27th November 2014, suing their company TS entertainment for:
not paying them properly and no transparency in the company of where their profits were actually going
overworking the members to the point where they had to go to the hospital, and were then being made to leave it (after paying the fees themselves!!) early to perform
damage to their mental and physical health
no free time or social life / time to see family
excessive number of (very expensive!!) overseas concerts to milk out international fans’ pockets (the cheapest LOE ‘14 London ticket was £89! for a 2-year-old group!! fun story: my naive 15-year-old self messaged the B.A.P Facebook page raising my concerns over this hahahahahdsdsfd they never replied lol) instead of giving B.A.P exposure in Korea apart from music show promotions (does this sound familiar?)
concerts being planned without the members even knowing etc
more detailed info here!
personally, before the lawsuit I wasn’t that involved in the fandom itself and instead followed B.A.P attentively but from afar. I remember being really surprised to see TS cancel a leg of the LOE ‘14 tour for the members’ health, thinking that TS was a good company for paying attention to that. but now that I think about it, for TSent to cancel concerts (£££) makes me think it must have been really bad.
the lawsuit period flipping sucked. minimal updates from the members, who probably had enough shit on their plates without going on social media; honestly to think about it, we get so restless if we don’t hear from them for a few days, so imagine weeks/months. no news apart from shitty news of TS postponing courts (with my non-existent legal knowledge, I feel like they were trying to drain B.A.P of money or ??? something idk but they must have gained something from dragging it out and making everyone else so frustrated). it was just a dark time of uncertainty, and with each passing month, the possibility of B.A.P coming back to the k-pop scene together was becoming less likely. I originally cheered B.A.P on when I first read the news of the lawsuit, being proud of them for standing up for themselves against injustice, presuming they’d be able to pull a Block B and find a new company soon enough. but as time went on (Yongguk released AM 4:44 and Zelo released No Title in around April/May 2015, voicing their frustration too), I started to realise it wasn’t going to happen. “I miss bap”, “where did bap go”, “it’s so sad about bap” etc etc...
the news of B.A.P returning to TS ent on 1st August was a strange surprise. on the one hand, a lot of us were really happy at the prospect of B.A.P being back! but on the other, how could we be sure that TS wouldn’t mistreat the members again? B.A.P insisted that they talked things over with the company and that things are now better, and though TS continues to show signs of profit-oriented use of the group (eg two world tours in two years! wtf!), and just general poor management and lack of thought/communication, B.A.P chose to go back for a reason, and I trust their reasoning. being a person who generally sees the best in things, I just sat on my bed half-stunned and blasted their most badass songs at the highest volume, finally being able to thoroughly enjoy their music again without feelings about the lawsuit nagging at me. from what I can see, there are still definite improvements to how B.A.P are treated:
more free time
better pay, if some members having cars/scooters (lmao) and going on holiday is anything to go by
Yongguk and Daehyun being able to have their own homes, and Zelo being able to move back in with his family, and the other three moving into a better apartment. in the early days, all 6 members used to sleep in one room!!
they’re going to be releasing their third full album soon!!!
member solo activities: Daehyun acting in musicals, Youngjae being a host for The Show, Yongguk and Zelo working on their own music, etc
Yongguk given a break from all activities for a few months to focus on his mental health
so anyway, B.A.P announced that they’d be making their comeback with their 4th mini album Matrix on 16th of November 2015, but on the 15th they’d hold a comeback showcase. they made a V App channel, had a live video of them literally standing there in their matoki suits, bodies completely covered.....and it was the most wonderful feeling watching them all together again. you really don’t fully appreciate what you have until it goes. their matrix showcase was aired live on V App so everyone could watch B.A.P stand together on stage for the first time in almost a year. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was one of the most surreal and happy days of my life to see and feel what I never thought I’d experience ever again. I woke up in the middle of the night to watch them singing again, and looking so happy to be back doing what they love. after such a miserable period of time, 151115 marked a fresh page to a new history of better things. it’s the symbol of their rebirth into the B.A.P we know now.
some people these days will complain about how the lawsuit damaged B.A.P’s popularity and success etc, and they’re right: it did. disappearing for months (not years!! people exaggerate how long the hiatus was) at such a crucial time of rapid change in the k-pop industry lost them many fans, but what would the alternative have been? a popular, successful B.A.P who were being worked to death on a minimal wage, singing on stage about social justice when they had none themselves? no matter what, I’m extremely proud of B.A.P for taking action and I’m glad that they did. the journey was bumpy (and often still is), but it’s still much better than what it was before. we shouldn’t focus so much on all these ‘lost fans’ and ignore the fact that B.A.P have been active for the last two years, gaining new fans and making new music and memories.
B.A.P continues to grow: it’s clear how much they improve with each and every comeback (see: line distribution). TS still sucks, but a tiny bit less than before (seriously though if they announce another world tour in 2018 I will go over there and slap a bitch). but yeah, most importantly, B.A.P is back! and has been now for exactly 2 years! they’re back and they’re here and they’re amazing and I love them and I’m so proud to call myself their fan :’)
#b.a.p#bap#151115withbap#151115#171115#mine#bap: text#BITCH IF YOU THINK IM EMO YOU WOULD BE DAMN RIGHT#I LOVE BAP WITH ALL MY HEART#<33333333333333333333333333#queue#bap: other
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Congratulations, Cee! You’ve been accepted for the role of Bobby Davies with the faceclaim of Julian Morris. Here’s another sample application from one of our existing members. You can find our other sample applications in this tag here. If you’re working on an app and have any questions, don’t hesitate to send them through.
OUT OF CHARACTER
Name: Cee
Age: 20
Pronouns: She/her
Timezone: GMT+10
Activity estimation: During my university break, I can typically post IC every day or every second day, doing multiple threads. During semester, I’m usually able to write and post IC every 2-3 days, at least. If I know I’ll be extremely busy, I’ll request a hiatus or semi-hiatus or stagger posts slightly!
Triggers: N/A
IN CHARACTER: BASICS
Full name: Robert ‘Bobby’ Davies
Age (DD/MM/YYY): Thirty (30/09/1966)
Gender: Cis male
Pronouns: He/him
Sexuality: Homosexual demiromantic
Occupation: Systems research analyst
Connection to Victim: Truthfully, through town gossip. He’s never spoken a word to any of the Goodes. Maggie’s brought Linda up once or twice over dinner, especially since Brian has gone missing. All Oh, poor Brian and sidelong glances at Deborah. That, or the Goodes have been mentioned in passing when he’s landed himself in a hushed, sensitive crash-course on his younger sister.
Alibi: He was at a high-end wine bar in Lansing that afternoon, doing his damnedest to impress a colleague over a twenty-dollar glass of merlot. Bobby’s been tentative to suggest to him they go for drinks, especially on a four-thirty Friday knockoff. So they agreed for Saturday instead. He drove back alone to Devil’s Knot around 8.45 that night and went straight to bed.
Faceclaim: Julian Morris
WRITING SAMPLE
His eyes are starting to blur. Long gone are the heat mirages and blinding pale sunlight across the flat. Now, the horizon bleeds into purple and blue. Worse yet, the radio’s been reduced to static and there’s not a cassette to be found in the car. A hand idly goes up to pinch the bridge of his nose first, then rub at the corner of one eye. At first, the distant spot of light is dismissed by fatigue, although as he nears the brightness grows, bringing into focus silhouettes of parked trucks and cars, patchy along the line of a gas station.
Once there he pulls over. At the pumps Bobby stops, although he doesn’t get out of the car right away. He’s somewhere over the Nevada border, past Reno but ultimately nowhere. Why didn’t he buy a goddamn plane ticket? Right. Work had left him high and dry, damn near cashless save for what he’d stuffed his wallet with. They’d even been hesitant to cough up a final pay, leaving Bobby with no choice but the car, though he suspects it’s got a touch more leg room than economy.
Deep down, he drives for the nostalgia. Lets himself revisit the same sights from the way over when he was eighteen. Though, there’s a few more strip malls than he recalls along the way, and the songs on the radio don’t sound quite right. No more Bruce Springsteen and AC/DC. It sounds sadder. The drive’s also to tell himself that when he gets back to Devil’s Knot, Perry won’t be there waiting. Neither will Maggie. It’ll likely be close to midnight when he arrives, the town deadened by sleep and the outskirts pitch black. It’s a cosmic joke that he’ll probably have to get a room at Sal’s run-down motel. Maybe that’s his trial by fire.
Bobby lets out a sigh and leaves the car. His feet shuffle on the spot as the tank refills, homed in on the rhythmic click of the gas pump, the rush of trucks that fly by left muted, as if they’re ways away rather than right beside him. Inside, he meanders between the aisles of garish chip packets and half-melted candy. He’s not proud of impulse buys but the CD copy of a Toto album is set on the counter with resolution as he mutters the pump number, pulls out a few fifties before going on his way once more. The CD slipped in, the stereo begins to blare in a bid to stay awake. Maybe if he can just make it to the state border and hit Utah, it’ll be enough to get there by the end of the week.
He has to stop at a place far closer, though, because there’s a lightness in his chest and not enough air seems to be getting in. It’s asthma, he chalks it down to; only part of the cocktail of nerves he can’t gulp down. At the back of his neck there’s gooseflesh. It doesn’t go away, even as he checks into a highway motel and clicks the television on to the eleven-p.m. news while he searches for a puffer in his duffel bag. It’s a feel-good story, the newscasters smiling and laughing with each other. With the help of a stale mini-bottle of whiskey from the motel fridge, Bobby manages to fall asleep before the midnight television static sets in.
ANYTHING ELSE?
BACKGROUND
TW FOR DRUGS / DRUG USE, OVERDOSE.
As many others can attest to, 1984 has, and continues to, shake Bobby to his core. Try as he might to swallow it back down the taste lingers sour, like bile. Until then he had grown up having what most considers a ‘normal’ childhood. Or a variant of it; depends on who you ask. Small town, a single mother, no dad in sight and grades high enough to make a Mensa member swoon. He had brought up his father once or twice when he was quite young. His curiosity eventually waned once he grew closer with his mother, Maggie, or found his nose becoming caught between a hefty book more and more often. Much to her chagrin, he’d already begun to gobble up Stephen King novels by the time he was thirteen. Books were a pleasant escape from the static of Devil’s Knot, at least for a while.
The year Phillip Silverman died and Pete narrowly avoided the same fate sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s red and swollen and throbbing – infected – and clear as day in the back of his head. Although he’s tried to rid himself of it, tuck the year away nice and neat, it threw everything off-kilter. The IB grades, the cherry-red As on his papers. An Ivy League university just in his grasp. Whatever he was sure of in himself; a hundred and one ways to get out of town and make something of himself once graduation rolled around, all gone. He wanted to get to NASA – where did that go?
Instead of graduating with friends and spending afternoons blush-drunk in the car of the boy he loved a little way out of town in the summer, an ugly mess of events sent him fleeing. He’s never forgotten the flash of red and blue some months later outside the house. Snow dappling the frozen, muddy front year, hands just free of a prayer before dinnertime, Max up and gone with the follow of Charlie Taylor’s pinched stare.
As if the murder, the endless days spent sleuthing for a whodunnit like an episode of Scooby Doo didn’t leave an imprint on him, the trial certainly did. It was the first time he’d ever worn a suit – a proper suit. He still remembers the too-tight collar, the beads of sweat on his forehead, the click of the stenographer in a Lansing courtroom. The worst part, though, was the fall of Maggie’s expression at the end of it.
Bobby didn’t even graduate high school. Where his diploma should be on the wall of Maggie’s living room, framed in beautiful wood and glass and stared at with that wistful smile of hers, it’s not. Instead he drove west with Perry Esposito. He’d planned it for some time. A tatty duffel bag under the bed, bursting at the seams with a few good books and wads of cash he’d saved from odd jobs, birthdays, loose change and old clothes. Cooped up in Sal’s shitty crate of a car with his knees to his chest, poring over a paranormal reader’s digest in the passenger seat, he was sure he could wean himself off the growing panic that grappled its way up his chest cavity. But somewhere in a Californian hotel parking lot, things crumbled once more. Raised voices skipped over the roof of a car, he stole it and ended up boggle-eyed and knee-deep between the swathes of tech geniuses in Silicon Valley.
It sounds like something out of a movie, he can admit. But it’s true. There were a few hiccups here and there for a kid with no qualifications, although things ironed out once people realised he had a natural aptitude, was too smart for his own good. He soon forgot Perry; or acted like he did.
Habits of small town living still lingered there. Although, people on the West Coast seemed more… accepting. Nobody would bat an eyelid if he said he had no other qualifications besides a few months between a tech start-up and unpaid internship, if he became too touchy with another man beside the pool at a casual ‘work’ party or a friend gestured to a tabletop lined by neat white and somebody’s credit card, for that matter. Over the years he’s gotten his hands grubby with money, drugs, uttering This means nothing, agreeing to it. Although it made him feel sure of himself, strangely, it hasn’t come without a price.
When he looks back, it was all far too much for somebody of his age. It raised him, in a way. Just as Maggie did. Except ambitious corporations brought him up on lackey internships, BASIC, an eight to six day and a celebratory drink at the end of the week. Bobby, prone to burnouts and stubborn perfection, slipped into a drug habit by the time he’d hit twenty-five to cope with the pressure – although he was proud to say he’d never gotten into cigarettes. Touted as the young, bright kid obsessed with computers from a place only made infamous by grisly crime, there was an immense expectation he felt he had to live up to.
In 1993 (or ‘94, things get hazy here), Bobby willed himself to walk through the front door of a rehab centre. He’d gone too far at a party. Having wound up in a hospital with an awful taste in his mouth and a drip in his arm, the idea ate away at his head until he forced himself to it. Going back to his job as if nothing had happened, as if his friends weren’t the ones who’d egged him on to have a bit of fun, blow off steam, was much, much harder. After having grit his teeth for another two years, Bobby got in his car that summer to make the drive back to Devil’s Knot, thinking endlessly about the fact that Perry wasn’t in the seat next to him to shout Dancing in the Dark at the top of their lungs while he drove along an empty desert stretch.
Settling back into Devil’s Knot has been met with fleeting doubts. Before Brian went missing, it seemed too good to be true. Nearly everyone from high school remained. Maggie was there, albeit with a surprise that he’d ignored for a staggeringly long time. He picked up a job in Lansing in no time. Or talked his way into it, his boss raising an eye at the fact he’d not gotten so much as a high school diploma, let alone a degree. Since the disappearance of Brian Goode, the oppressive weight of 1984 has set itself upon his chest once more, made the air stifling.
HEADCANONS
Bobby feels as if he’s failed Maggie by returning home with his tail between his legs. His first dinner back home was by far the most nerve-wracking experience, even more so than the shock of catching sight of Perry Esposito behind the bar counter when he ordered a martini filled to the brim with top-shelf liquor (or the best that Devil’s Knot could muster). He expected conversation to fall back as it was in 1984. Although he’d given Maggie the occasional telephone call over the years, it was never enough to properly connect. And after 1994 it turned into complete silence until the evening he arrived back right before the stroke of midnight, hoping the front porch light was on so he could beg for a spare room. Deborah’s a strange addition to the family, although he’s teaching himself to accept it and bite back the simmering fear that he’s lost the place where he stands with Maggie. But it’s a no-brainer. He couldn’t have possibly expected, after twelve years, to come back and have the jigsaw pieces slip neatly into place. He’s skinnier now, with purple always beneath the eyes and a strange edge he hasn’t worn away just yet. Things aren’t going back to the way they were, even if a childish part of him hopes for it.
He’s been living alone for years just fine. Why has it become so difficult to do back here? Bobby’s box-sized townhouse at the end of Main Street is a mess. There’s a distinct lack of furniture save for the stuff that came with the place, a rickety tower of empty Styrofoam takeaway containers in the kitchen sink where dirty dishes should be, television antenna askew and screen buzzing with static snow in his cramped living room. Most of the furniture he owned in California has ended up in a thrift store somewhere, collecting dust. The only thing he brought with him were his clothes, a far-cry from the jean jackets and ratty Adidas Superstars he wore when everyone last saw him. He’s become plainer. Boring. Ironed slacks and crisp white button downs, the collars starchy. No bright colours. Just white and black. The only casual clothing he’ll resort to wearing is a polo shirt and blue jeans on the weekend, if he’s really struggled with the laundry. The lack of company’s certainly gotten to him. His job in Lansing is a muted nine to five, the office laid out like a rat maze and punctuated only by the ring of a telephone or clack of a keyboard, the odd few friends to chat with there at arm’s length. Lately, he’s sought company at Mandy and Mary’s place, particularly on weekends. It’s nice. It makes Devil’s Knot more bearable, as well as dinner time. Bobby can’t cook to save himself. It either turns out burned, undercooked, or tasteless. That, and the weekly family meal at Maggie’s has been his saving grace. He’s still got his place at the table there, to his relief.
Rehab was an easy decision, kind of. Simple in thought, far more difficult in execution. Around 1993, or ’94 (he struggles to remember which; the early years of the decade were a blur) he’d left what little belongings remained in his one-bedroom apartment to settle in, to bunk beds and lights out and positive affirmations and group therapy, all with a hankering for the rush he’d forced himself to wean off. Going back to work was much harder. The culture seemed stifling, or perhaps too impulsive to let him be comfortable. Come on, a little won’t hurt. It’s not that bad. It didn’t take a phone call, or a missing boy in the news to send him back home. No, it was an itch under the skin that kept coming back on every Friday night get-together for after-work drinks.
Brian’s disappearance has made Bobby feel as if he’s been thrown back to 1984. Nothing pleasant, like Marty McFly going back to a wealthy family and happy girlfriend with a big shiny truck. No, it’s as if the search parties, sombre conversation with old friends has put him right back into his spot in the teenage “Scooby Gang” he’d wound up a part of. Worse still is that the sympathetic remarks he’s gotten from those in town makes him feel like he’s been reduced back to a wide-eyed teen. Or maybe it’s all in his head. With a tendency to bottle things up and never set things straight, Bobby’s nowhere near as open as he used to be. There are many things he hasn’t told Maggie, there are many things he hasn’t dared to admit to himself. He can feel the tension bubbling away at the back of his throat. One day, he suspects it’ll come right back up.
Bobby is selfish. After having learned to finally say no, stop putting himself up to the task of making sure others are happy at his own expense, there are many things he does that signals he wants to save his own neck. If he wants to get his way, he knows he can do so with money, all under the guise of a smile and sugar-coated generosity. Although he’ll genuinely splurge on those dear to him come Christmas time and birthdays, there are others he wants to have a sway over through grand gestures. He knows the novelty will wear off eventually.
His new job is okay – just okay. The work is repetitive at best, although it pays the bills and keeps him fed. He wanted a more senior position at first (I’ve got the experience and the skills straight from Silicon Valley, he’d pitched at the interview) but one glance down to the missing degree on his resume was all it took to put him down as a mundane desk worker. The last few months working it are bearable, although he wonders whether it’ll get any better than what he’s got now. A New Year’s resolution Bobby plans to keep once 1997 rolls around is to move to Lansing, maybe. Work part-time, go for a proper degree. If not only to make himself feel like less of a failure in Maggie’s eyes, it’ll help him shed off the worry that things are becoming static again.
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