You can be without someone for six months, a year, five years and have mastered not thinking about them. You can live day through day and emotion through emotion without your mind wavering from task to task, a robotic motion to say the least. But, no matter how much time passes there will always be that moment where you see a photo of them or catch a glimpse of there cologne on a crowded street and suddenly you’re plagued with a rapidly shrinking stomach and the relentless question: what did I do wrong?

Five years. Or six. Or maybe it’s only been a week. Time has passed and changed so differently that I can’t even begin to grasp the difference between now and then, today and tomorrow. I’ve moved on, to say the least. I’ve pocketed my tomorrows and I’m progressing with every second. But there are just some times, some times, when the insufficiency returns. The hurt. The loneliness.

Five years and I still can’t differentiate between infatuation or animosity, between detachment and a fluttery freedom. Five years and you still remain by that hole you continue to dig deeper and deeper into my mind. 

Five years and I don’t know if I want you to leave, or if I still need to let go.

Five years and all I want to hear is a hello. Goodbye. How are you.

I never expected to actually get one.

Five Years from today.

The sheet of paper stared at me blankly. All around me people were clicking pens and flipping their pencils, futures and careers and families being scrawled about the half-blank sheet of paper they all faced.

Five years from today, where do you want to be?

I nervously chewed on the end of my pen, my page still blank. I’m just barely 17, yet they ask me what I want for my future. I honestly didn’t care much for the assignment—it wasn’t for a grade, and I could always just write something random down. Like having a family. Or becoming a doctor or lawyer or something that would make anyone’s parents proud. The question itself hit me; in just a year, I’d be off to college. I’d be studying and making for myself a future and it was something I’d rather avoid. 

The teacher’s voice snapped me out of my trance. Everyone passed up their papers upon his orders. I slipped my blank one in, hoping to get away with a forsaken future with a possible C on the assignment for trying (if writing my name counts as ‘trying’). I blended into the crowd of students and kind-of friends and I nearly forgot my teen-life crisis happened.

That was, until at the end of the day my homeroom teacher boasted in front of the whole class that said teacher wanted to see me after school. Needless to say, the cacophony of “oohs” and laughter rendered my already carmine stained face rather disconcerted.

When I arrived in the classroom, there were about three other students as embarrassed and disgruntled as I was to be there. One girl with her hair dyed wild colors and lipstick bright and duplicitous, a boy with a bad slouch and pants sagging just a bit too much, and another boy with a stance and outfit and hairstyle that screamed simple. I stood next to him (and he spared me no glance) as we waited for our teacher’s apprehension. 

Our teacher explained that none of us had filled out our career evaluation sheets. I wasn’t surprised, but more annoyed that he actually called us out on it. Then, more regretful that I didn’t actually sprawl some nonsense about wanting a big house and lots or money or something. The acceptable 17-year-old self-declared social reject answer. 

We all sat down at the table as he eyed us writing down our futures. Before I had even formulated my dreamy lie, the simpleton had already scribbled something down and handed it in. He was already walking out the door when I heard the teacher scoff.

"Hey, Yoongi, what kind of joke is this?" he insinuated. "I want a ‘big house, big cars and big rings. But I don’t have any big dreams’. Is this a joke to you." 

The boy turned to face him, arms gently holding the straps of his backpack. “It wasn’t a joke, sir. It’s the truth.” (note: he said that with a straight face). 

Before the teacher could argue more, the kaleidoscopic girl turned in her paper and walked straight out of the door without any retort. Yoongi followed straight after, turning on his heel and speeding through the door. I did the same just after, scribbling down something about a nice family and a nice spouse. Vague, yes. Did I care? No.

I suppose all four of us wrote down insufficient answers, because as the slouchy guy and I walked out, the teacher yelled something about how ‘our generation was so insufficient’ and that ‘my kid won’t be like any of you’. I took it as a compliment.

I walked down the darkening halls towards the music wing, where I had left my guitar and things during lunch. The halls were quite eerie; the sun was already setting and nobody in their right mind would choose to stay in after school on a Friday. That said, I had nothing to go home to. Both of my parents work late and I’d have to make my own dinner and clean up the house before they yell at me. It’s customary for me to come home late at night every day with far-fetched excuses. They were never in the mood for arguing that late at night, so I could always just slip through with a couple grunts and sighs. 

The light in the band room was dim when I walked in. Another light bulb had gone out and the orange light from the sun barely sufficient enough to see the outlines of the stairs and steps. I walked up to the top stair, where I had left my guitar and music earlier. I always liked the band room—nobody besides me and the occasional lost freshman ever entered it or used it in off periods. It was quiet and had a faint smell of rosin and disinfectant.

My guitar was cold to the touch. I could only ever use it on the weekdays—my parents would probably throw it out in a heartbeat if they saw it, never mind hear me playing it. Technically, it’s not even my guitar. It was given to me by the old counselor who noticed the correlation between my home life and my music. It’s not the best guitar, but it’s the only thing I have. 

I pulled out my math notebook—“math” as in I never really paid attention while the teacher explained something I had already learned in grade school and just wrote and rhymed the entire time (that rhymed). Since last week, I had been composing my own song of some sort. It started out as a poem we had to draft for my language class, but it slowly evolved into an actual song song with verses and bridges and hooks. 

Well, technically, one chorus and a fourth of a verse. I lacked inspiration. 

I tried to solidify the melody I had already created to some of the lyrics. My voice was scratchy and the guitar was way out of tune, but I made way. 

"What is the you that you’ve dreamed of?
Who do you see in the mirror?”

I scratched a few things out of my notebook. 

"Go on your path
Even if you live for a day
Do something
Put away your demon—”

I heard a thump. And then another. And then a crash of chairs toppling and stands collapsing upon themselves. I nearly screamed. 

A lanky figure emerged from the rubble. “WHOA—Hi—I mean, sorry, uh, carry on” they stuttered out in a shout. 

My mouth was half open in awe and surprise, barely able to even stutter out some form of apology in response to their apology or anything else. “It’s alright…I think…are you okay?” 

"No, not really. But it’s fine, thank you, carry on." they repeated. Their voice was deep and scratchy, yet it carried a country-sort of lisp. I figured it was a boy; he was probably and underclassmen, since nobody in my class had a voice like that. It was unique, unlike anything I’ve ever heard. In a way, it was strained, yet smooth. I liked it. 

I put my guitar to the side and hopped down the stairs to meet them. He seemed like a weakling, since he was struggling to stack the chairs back. He was also much shorter than I imagined—maybe only two or three inches taller than me. Weird.

What surprised me even more was the scattered mess he had created. Chairs were dispersed on the ground, stands scattered left and right and sheet music everywhere. “God, what did you do.”

Thankfully, he ignored that. 

He ignored me the entire time, actually, while we continued to stack the chairs and reorder the stands. As he picked up the last stand, I handed him the stack of sheet music I assumed was his and stared downwards, afraid to meet his eyes as I asked if he heard me the entire time. 

"Yeah, actually. Sorry if you didn’t want to hear. I normally come in here during my lunch period, but I missed the bus today so I figured I’d just wait it out in here until the next one came…I didn’t notice you were in here until you started singing, though. It surprised me, as you can see."

I laughed at that, unable to respond in a literate or reasonable way. Internally, I was heating up and I felt as if I could sink before making eye contact with any other human ever again. He probably thought I a horrid singer and horrible guitarist (I wouldn’t refute it, though) and a horrid person altogether. Maybe if I didn’t make eye contact and ran into the shadows like some sort of demon, he would figure I wasn’t real and brush it off as some supernatural occurrence. 

"You have a really pretty voice. And a knack for songwriting—You wrote that, right? What you sang."

I looked up when he said that, insides still churning and eyes reluctantly teary. It didn’t pan my nauseousness, but it did give me a bit of hope. Somebody liked my music. Oh my god.

"You—yes—wait a second." I took a second to compose myself before facing him. "I—yeah, I wrote that. I’m glad you like it; it’s really not the best but…it’s more…you know, venting."

"You were there, too, yeah? Filling out those career surveys." 

I nodded. “Nice dream you got there, by the way.”

He scoffed when I said this. “I did as much as you probably did, write some bull answer and hope to get away with it.” 

"Well, mine wasn’t as bull as ‘big houses, big cars, and big rings’." I replied, laughing slightly.

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say miss ‘I’m gonna be a songwriter.’ I gotta catch my bus, so." he sighed, picking up the rest of his things and his backpack and walking out the door. "Sorry for interrupting you, again. It’s a nice song, really."

I nodded, too confused to walk away. I didn’t think much of him, just some random guy 

A really, really random guy.