Right now, I would kill to curl in my bed and call it a day, although it wasn’t my own and the bed sheet smelled funky, like a mix of burnt cigarette and sweat. I would lie on a bed of thorns if it means I didn’t have to go out of this room. 

Getting out of this room meant coming to terms with everything I’d been hearing all day. I would like to take what I could get, being able to hold onto the maybe’s. Maybe it was all just a cruel prank, like the one Jimin pulled off before my seventeenth birthday, the one where she pretended that I upset her and it was the end to our friendship. Maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe I just missed Jimin so much, it was me finally coming to realization that I had been a poor excuse of a friend. Maybe, it was all just a bad dream and if I sleep it off I would be awake the next day in my own room, and I could get on the bus first thing in the morning to Jinhae to visit Jimin and she would be really happy to see me. Maybe, just maybe, Jimin was still alive. Getting out of this room was like confirming the otherwise, acknowledging that Jimin…

Was gone.

I would roll under the bed sheet and make myself sleep if it wasn’t for Kim Jongin, knocking on my hotel room door in morse code.

Open the door, the most handsome guy in the world has graced you with his presence.

When I opened the door, stood Jongin in his best suit--I bet it would’ve been his wedding suit--with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, one that made him age for ten more years. The white band around his left upper arm made my bile rose up. I would’ve broke into a fit of tears for the hundredth time today, but Jongin’s obvious attempt to keep his smile intact made it possible for me to hold it in. 

How could he smile? How could he not resent everyone who made it out today alive, instead of her? 

“You look nice.”

When Jongin tells you that you look nice, he’s not just offering it just so you would feel less bad about yourself. Ninety nine percent of all times he means it. But this was the other one percent. He was trying to take my mind off things, off my sorrow, although it killed me inside more than it soothed me.

“You don’t look half bad yourself,” I said, enveloping Jongin in my arms, basking in his scent. The closest thing I had to home. His strong arms were haven, Jimin told me once, and now I agreed.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Hyein-ah.”

I didn’t want him to feel sorry anymore. I shook my head against his chest, not letting go.

“I’m sorry for not telling you.”

“If there’s anyone I trust in this world now, it’s you, Jongin-ah. I believe in your judgment. If you decided not to tell me, then it means it would be a bad idea to do otherwise,” I reluctantly pulled back, my nimble fingers tried to smooth down the crinkled spot on Jongin’s suit where my head was attached.

“And please, don’t try to put on a smile in front of me. I know you’re breaking. It hurts me to see that you’re putting on your guard when you’re with me. We’ve been friends for what? Ten years?”

“Eleven,” he said, still smiling, but he didn’t try to hide his lethargy now.

“I’m not putting on my guard. It’s just that I’ve cried my eyeballs out, there’s no tears left. You can say that I’m happy now. Jimin isn’t in pain anymore.”

I sighed, my eyes teary and I didn’t want to cry anymore. I didn’t deserve Jongin. The world didn’t deserve him, nor did it deserve my best friend Jimin who had ended her journey with nothing to her name yet. Not even her own kids, a boy and a girl, like she had told me one time: she would name them Hwan and Miso--brightness and smile, the two things she loved the most about Jongin. 

“Lucky you. Mine doesn’t seem like it would run out soon,” I said in my attempt to be lighten the atmosphere a little

Then it occurred to me that we had been standing on my hotel doorway for too long.

“We should go,” I told him, but what I wanted to say was I don’t want to go ever. I want to curl up in my bed although it reeked of .

Jongin squeezed my arms encouragingly and nodded. I nodded back, went to grab my coat--which Jongin took right away, like the gentleman that he always was--and my purse.

Everything will be alright, I told myself. Whether I believed it was another story.

<>

The air in Jongin’s car got thicker and thicker the closer we got to the funeral house. The realization dawned upon us gradually, we hadn’t addressed that giant elephant in the room. We had been sweeping it under the rug and hoping it disappears, but it didn’t make it smaller. 

“Are you going to be okay?”

He could be asking about a lot of things, but the way he tried to shift his eyes off from the road before him onto me was a dead giveaway. I could sense that he was feeling guilty.

“Yes. Believe it or not, I’m very prepared for this.”

And believe it or not, I wasn’t lying, at least not in my head.

“What? Really?” he said in disbelief.

“Yep. I’ve imagined it way too many times over the years. I have prepared for every scenario possible. No need to worry about me.”

We arrived in about five minutes. Jongin didn’t allow me to get out of the car, he inspected my face thoroughly, looking for any sign of fear and intention of running away. But no avail, I hid it well, a skill I had accumulated over the years.

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning on killing him today," the word him felt like acid. We hadn't brought him into our conversations for years. "...or anyone for that matter."

“And don’t attack anyone either.”

“No promise on that one though.”

He chuc