A/N: Based off a song that I've been really into for like 2 months now. Its something I grew up listening to because of my parents. Some of my favorite songs end up being break-up songs, I don't even know. ._. So here, gri angst.

The song is Operator (That's not the way it feels) by Jim Croce.

Just wanted to let ya'all know this will be the last "chapter" to this drabble fic. From now on I'll post one-shots as individual stories. Thank you for the comments and subbies. It means so much. <3

Ch. 17/18 will eventually be turned into a chaptered AU fic. I'm so sorry. I also owe some giftfics to people. >< Those will be posted separately.

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I've overcome the blow,

I've learned to take it well.

I only wish my words

could just convince myself

that it just wasn't real,

but that's not the way it feels.

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The next thing I knew, he was back in Gwangju with an old childhood friend, a girl he had talked to me about for all those years, all those late night conversations. Beneathe the butter-smeared lips from the popcorn with the late pay-per-view movies, beneathe the dark eyes that would stare at me longingly as I rest my head against his shoulders on the couch. Our couch. The nose that would nuzzle into my neck, the ears that would listen to my nonsensical babbles when I was too tired or stressed, the hands that would sweep the tears across my face when I was frustrated.

All of him was no more. Gone. Miles away from Seoul, in the countryside. I could certainly afford the bus ticket to take me there back with him, but I couldn't and I wouldn't. I didn't have the nerve. He was happy.

But it hurt. Sleeping was already hard enough as it was for me. The pain just made it worse, the pain was never this bad before. The pain was something I thought I had gotten rid of, only I didn't. It was only because Seungri was there all those times to numb it.

But now it hurt. Yet again. Not just the physical kind, but the thoughts. My mentality. The darkness of loneliness.

How could such a blessing, such a beautiful existence to my life and all that he did for me, how could he just leave? I needed him, though I must have taken him for granted somewhere along the line.

The pain wouldn't go away, was it even real? The thoughts, the flashbacks. What he was to me. Was he real, or was even he just a fragment of my imagination?

I couldn't convince myself, though I tried. I tried so hard to erase him, because he was happy without me and surely getting rid of him could numb the pain again.

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't erase him from my memories. Humans just didn't work that way, and though I was flawed, I was still a human, at that.

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In my delirium, I found myself walking the streets of Hongdae, as the sidewalk musicians played their love songs, as the clubs blasted their noncense. It was raining, pouring, though maybe I was just imagining it. Maybe I was just crying, who knows.

My lips quivered in the cold, or was it even cold outside? My chattering teeth were betraying me, softly whispering some sort of mantra. Numbers. I was repeating numbers, the same order of digits over and over. It must have been a phone number.

An old friend saw me walking across an intersection. He said I looked exhausted, having met up with me within just a few long strides across pavement. I asked him if he knew the number I couldn't stop repeating, and he gave me the weirdest look.

"He's not real, Ji."

He was only saying that because he knew I was trying to forget him.

"Hey."

It was like a loud clap of thunder just swept over me.

"Hey," he said again, grabbing my shoulders.

But that's just not the way it feels.

He would always be real, so real. Though I secretly prayed that number would be obselete.

 

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