“You should go. I don’t want to be with you anymore, and you have no reason to stay here.”    

    His final words linger in his thoughts. The memory of that day is still clear in Seokjin’s mind: 

    August 31st, the two of you stood in the living room of Seokjin’s third-floor apartment. The sun was setting outside, painting the sky with pink and orange. The neighbourhood was quiet this time of evening; most people were going indoors earlier now that the seasons were in transit. You watched the trees across the street being manipulated by the wind- all reluctantly being forced to bend in the same direction. Tonight the wind was headed west, and you wondered briefly if it was following the sun, around to the other side of the world so people could wake up to a clear day and crisp pre-autumn air. You continued to watch the trees, and part of you imagined that they too wanted to go along- to simply float away with the breeze, unburdened by the many roots that kept them so firmly grounded. You smiled sadly, silently wishing the same thing for yourself someday.  

    “I finally had a reason for us to stay together,” you said, turning your attention back to Seokjin. “But I guess I’m on my own now.” 

    You kept his gaze for a few final moments before turning around and heading for the door. In the two minutes it took you to lace up your sneakers, part of you expected Seokjin to say something, do something. But the only audible sounds came from you as you shuffled around, preparing to leave for the last time. You knew you shouldn’t have expected too much- Jin was a proud man, if nothing else. But your heart still dropped a little as you unlocked the door and moved into the hallway as casually as if you were going to return tomorrow. 

    You stepped out of the building and shivered as the wind struck your face. It was still moving west, stronger than before. You wrapped your arms around yourself and ducked your head as you began walking east, away from the pink and orange and towards the darkening gradient of blue. The wind picked up even more and you stopped walking, surprised by the force of the air. It was as if the element was urging you to follow it, and even the leaves rustled noisily in objection, but you simply hugged yourself tighter and kept moving, following the long, outstretched shadows in front of you. 

    Seokjin watched your retreating figure from the apartment’s main entrance, promising himself that if you looked back once, just once, he would run to you and find a way to keep you with him. You said you had a reason for the two of you to stay together, but even if you didn’t, Seokjin would find one. He would become the wind for you: he would pick you up and carry you west, into the sunlight. The two of you could escape together and find somewhere new, somewhere where you could always wake up to clear days and crisp air. Somewhere where the breeze plays in the trees and the trees play along, but have no intention of going anywhere because they are perfectly content where they are. Somehow, someway, Seokjin would do that. He would do that for you in less than a heartbeat, less than an instant, and all you had to do was turn around, just once. 

    The wind blew stronger and Seokjin’s heart leapt into his throat as you stopped walking. 

    Just once, just once.
 

    But you never looked back.  

    Your expression that day, the emptiness in your eyes as you said your final words...it still haunts him. He hurt you, and because of that he hurts. 

    He still hurts.

    Every day.

    Every day since the day you left.

    And every day since the day you left, the same questions cross Seokjin’s mind:

    Where are you?

    Are you doing well?

    Are you happy?

    Will I ever see you again?

    What was the meaning behind your words?

    And perhaps the most torturous of all:

    Why did I let you go?

    Of course with the last question comes the same rationalization: he had no choice; he could never let you sacrifice your future for him. He broke your heart to save you, even if he still doesn’t fully understand how. 

    Seokjin never knew what was worse: that he himself couldn’t fully understand his logic for letting you go, or that- despite not fully understanding his logic- he still let you go. Maybe if he had asked you the reason you had to stay with him he would have understood better. Maybe if he had been a better man who was worthy of your love, he wouldn’t have felt so guilty about making you stay. But maybes and what ifs were now the bane of his existence, and Seokjin had to put up mental dams to keep out the waterfall of scenarios that would forever go unplayed. 

    It’s a cloudy Tuesday when Seokjin gets a call. 

    He is in his kitchen making ramen when he hears his phone ring. He lazily shuffles into the living room and glances at the caller ID before answering. 

    “Hoseok, what is it?”

    “Hyung-” Hoseok’s voice crackles through the phone, and even through the static Seokjin can tell something is up.

    “Hyung, there’s...there’s something I need to tell you...” Seokjin waits several moments for Hoseok to continue, and when the silence on the other end of the line carries on, a realization slowly dawns on him.

    “Hoseok, does this have to do with...”

    “Hyung, I....you have to understand-”

    “Does it?”

    “Please don’t-”

    “Answer me!”

    Hoseok sighs. Seokjin has figured it out, there is no point in denying it now.

    “Yes. She...she came back.”

    “Where is she?”

    “She’s at her parent’s house. But hyung there’s something-”

    Seokjin hangs up before Hoseok can finish his sentence and bolts out the door. He doesn’t care that he’s still in his pajamas, he doesn’t care that he hasn’t freshened up, he doesn’t care that people are staring at his bare feet. There is only one thing on his mind now:
 

    You.
 

    As he runs, a small part of Seokjin notices that he is running on autopilot; twenty-six months since the last time he saw you, since he was anywhere near your parents’ house, and yet he runs as if he is making another routine visit. For some reason, this pains Seokjin and he runs harder, the balls of his feet pressing into the concrete even more as he sprints the last two hundred metres to his final destination.

    Standing outside of your house, the mental dams he has spent so long perfecting erupt instantly, and Seokjin thinks of all the maybes and what ifs and possibilities he thought would never happen. But what can he say? What can he possibly do to fix his mistake? 

    A sudden wind blows directly in Seokjin’s face and he flinches, but he keeps his ground. He’s come this far- it’s going to take more than air to make him turn around now. 

    He cautiously makes his way to the front door, nostalgia and fear slowing him down a little more with every step. He is about to knock when he hears your voice drift around from the side of the house. 

    The backyard. The yard where the two of you shared your first kiss, where Seokjin first told you he loved you...you had named it the “garden of miracles” because no matter what the season, no matter what the weather, whenever the two of you were in that yard, something new always occurred.

    Seokjin takes his time rounding the house, the fear and nostalgia now dead weights on his ankles, making progress a near impossibility. But he keeps moving, keeps forcing his breathing to stay even, keeps clenching and unclenching his fists in the hopes that his hands will stop shaking so much. He rounds the corner-
 

    -And wishes he hadn’t.

    Whether it’s a conscious action or not Seokjin doesn’t know, but as soon as he steps into the backyard his eyes automatically scan for you, and when he sees you his body goes cold. It’s been more than two years since you walked out of Seokjin’s apartment, and his memory didn’t do you justice. Somewhere along the line he forgot the details: the shape of your eyes when you smile, the way your nose scrunches when you laugh, the inviting way you stretch out your arms when you’re seeking a hug.

    Seokjin watches on weak legs as a little baby boy in blue overalls waddles his way over to you. He watches with blurred vision as you scoop him up and swing him around, kissing him all over as he giggles with joy. He watches with a heavy heart as you tap your cheek gently and beam when you finally receive the little boy’s kiss. 

    And he watches with all three as a taller man with blonde hair comes out of the house and hugs you from behind, nuzzling his nose into the base of your neck.

    Suddenly Seokjin feels dizzy. He’s nauseated. He has to get out of here. Careful not to make any noise, he turns around and begins walking, not knowing or caring where he’s headed. 

    Away. He just has to get away. His heart...he can’t feel it anymore. All that’s there is a hollow space inside his chest that makes him feel weightless. He wants the wind to carry him away, but for once the air is completely still. 

    As Seokjin walks, he finally understands what you meant with your parting words. But why didn’t you tell him? Surely you would have known that Seokjin wasn’t the kind of man to turn away from a child, his child no less. Did you really think he wouldn’t be willing to find a way to keep you with him for something as important as this? And why did he have to hear from Hoseok- him, of all people- that you had come back? 

    At the thought of Hoseok, Seokjin pulls out his phone to call and tell him the news. It’s then he notices he has a new message- strange, he never felt the vibration. But then again he was preoccupied with more important matters.

    Oddly enough, the message is from Hoseok:

Hyung, please don’t go see her.... she’s with someone else now, and she’s happy. She has a son, 18 months...please don’t see her....if you do, you’ll only feel more regret.

Hyung, let her be happy. 

    He knew.

 

    Seokjin’s mind is fuzzy and his fingers shake as he tries three times to dial Hoseok’s number. The phone rings five times before Hoseok answers. 

    “Hyung-”

    “You knew?” Seokjin’s voice is loud but he doesn’t care. The streets are empty and the wind has picked up again, sending his voice into the atmosphere and beyond. “You son of a ! You knew about this and you didn’t tell me?”

    “It’s not-”

    “How long?” Seokjin demands. His mind races as his still-bare feet pound the pavement, too pre-occupied with the conversation to notice where his body is taking him. “How long did you know about this?”

    There’s a long pause before he answers. Each second he has to wait makes Seokjin want to scream, but finally Hoseok mumbles, “since the beginning.”

    Hot tears fill Seokjin’s eyes, but they quickly freeze and dry up as the wind commandeers their movement, streaking his face as he continues moving. 

    “You rat bastard,” he chokes. “You knew all this time and you never told me? Why?” He stops abruptly as he realizes he’s made it all the way to Hoseok’s house. He can faintly see the other boy’s silhouette in the first floor window, and suddenly all he wants to do is pick up the first thing he sees and throw it through the glass. He wants to break down the door and beat Hoseok senseless, he wants to kick and tear and damage whatever he can get his hands on. He wants to destroy something; he wants to destroy something the way he was destroyed twenty-six months ago. 

    Seokjin can feel various creatures of rage and hurt swirling dangerously close to his heart. He feels them poking and prodding, enjoying the malicious sufferance they’re inflicting. Each time they tamper with his chest cavity Seokjin gets a little angrier, and the imps grow a little bigger, turn a little darker. He has to get them out or else they’ll crush him from the inside. 

    He looks at Hoseok’s silhouette in the first floor window, and channeling all his energy, he spews out the demonic creatures in streams of red and black tar aimed straight for the house in front of him as he screams:

 

    “WHY?!” 



 

    There’s a ringing in Seokjin’s ears that he didn’t notice before. His face is hot and his temples feel ready to burst. More tears well in his eyes, but he closes them tightly and brushes them away with his hand, refusing to admit just how close he is to a breakdown. Instead he focuses on Hoseok’s shadow as it disappears briefly, re-emerging in full form as he steps out the front door. He stops, his face a mild concoction of resignation and...fear? 

    Why won’t he look at me? Seokjin thinks as he watches Hoseok. Head down, he takes an unusual amount of time to descend the four steps leading to the walkway, and even then he only makes it halfway down the path before he stops, shivers, and tries to shove his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and tilts his head to the right, squinting as the oncoming wind stings his eyes. 

    “Hyung...” Hoseok starts finally, “you have to understand. This...there were a lot of complications with this.” He looks up at Seokjin and neither of them can tell if Hoseok’s tears are due to the wind or the pain from his words. “I wanted to tell you, I thought you should have known-”

    “I should have known!” Seokjin spits. “So why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t she tell me?! I mean for ’s sake he’s my son too! If I had known about this, I wouldn’t have...we could have...we could still...” 

    Hoseok grimaces as he listens, his face bleak with something Seokjin can’t pinpoint, and that only enrages him further. But before he can ask Hoseok speaks again.

    “That’s the problem hyung, he- it- ahh,” Hoseok rubs the back of his neck and tries once more.

    “The baby...he’s not yours. 

    “It...he’s mine.”

    Boom.

    A viral numbness rapidly spreads through Seokjin’s body; everything around him blurs and blacks out. The street is quiet, but the silence is deafening him. For all the air that had been causing commotion earlier, there was none to be found now, especially not in Seokjin’s lungs.  

    He collapses on the curb and rests his elbows on his knees, head in his hands, heart on the concrete. 

    “When...how...what...” Seokjin’s thoughts are moving so fast his lips can’t keep up. This isn’t possible, he thinks. It’s not. It’s not possible.

    “Hyung, I’m so sorry.” Hoseok’s voice sounds hollow and distant, as if it were coming through a tin-can telephone. 

    “It was really never supposed to be like this. It’s just...you guys were having a really difficult time then, and when you came to Taehyung’s summer party with another girl, she got really upset.” Hoseok rubs the back of his neck again. “She talked to me about it, but the more she talked the more upset she got. I tried distracting her with some drinking games, and it worked for a bit, but then the alcohol really hit both of us and I out...hyung, I’m so sorry.”

    By the end of Hoseok’s story Seokjin is completely drained of energy. All the time he had spent thinking of you, wishing he could go back in time and fix his mistake, hoping you would return so he could prove to you how much more worthy he was of your love...it had all been pointless. 

    “Then what?” Seokjin’s voice cracks as he says this. His heart screams from the pavement not to torture himself any further, but his brain has to know. 

    “We didn’t speak for three weeks after that. And then she called me and told me she was pregnant, but she didn’t know if it was yours.” Seokjin feels movement beside him, and he looks up briefly enough to notice Hoseok is now beside him on the curb. The other boy can’t bring himself to look at his elder, so instead he speaks to the dimly glowing streetlight across from them. “She wanted it to be yours so badly. Actually, I wanted it to be yours too. I asked her if we should tell you, but she told me not to say a word until we went to get a paternity test.” Hoseok shivers. “That clinic was one of the weirdest places I’ve ever been to.

    “We waited until the results came back, and when we found out that they weren’t what we expected...”

    At this point Seokjin has regained some of his senses; he can feel how heavy his head and shoulders are; he can taste the salt from his tears as they sporadically trickle down to the corners of his mouth. His vision is blurred, memories of the past skew themselves in light of this new discovery. He hears every word, but he hopes against hope that he is hearing it all wrong. Hoseok, oblivious to Seokjin’s slow relapse to reality, is now on a verbal sprint to finish his story.

    “I didn’t know what to do. I mean I still thought we should have told you, but she didn’t want to. She said it didn’t matter if it was yours or not, she would tell you it was yours. She said it was a blessing because now she finally had a reason for-”

    “-us to stay together.” Seokjin finishes. After more than two years of what ifs and maybes and other seemingly endless possibilities, that’s what it had all come down to.   

    But he never gave you the chance. He let you go, without even knowing. 

    Seokjin runs a hand through his hair as he tries sorting out the onslaught of new information. Suddenly new questions form in his mind:

    Would I have been a good father?

    Would I have known he wasn’t mine?

    Would we have been happy together?

 

    Would I have been able to live this life, even if it was a lie?

    “She loved you, hyung.”

 

    Hoseok’s voice draws Seokjin’s attention, and he looks at the younger boy wearily, wondering if he would still be able to remain friends with him. It pains Seokjin to realize he probably wouldn’t. “She probably still loves you. You were her first love. But after you...after you let her go, she had to move on. She had to become strong because she didn’t want her baby to suffer because of her. I talked to her sometimes- I know you told me not to, but she was hurting a lot...she always asked about you and how you were doing. When I told her about your depression she wanted to come back and see you, but we both figured it would only make things worse.” 

    Hoseok gently knocks his knuckles together and bites his lip before speaking his next words.

    “You know, when you let her go...she really believed you. She didn’t want to, and I told her she was crazy for it, but she really believed what you said. That’s why she stayed away for so long: she was afraid if she saw you, all her feelings would return. But she thought you didn’t feel the same way anymore, so it would have been even harder for her....”      

    Seokjin laughs tiredly. Too much had been unveiled at once, and Seokjin now feels as vulnerable as a sandcastle. As each wave of Hoseok’s words wash over him, he feels himself getting smaller, his walls crumbling, his entire structure falling away piece by piece. But he can’t stop now. As painful as it all is, there is still more he needs to know.

    “Who is he?” It takes a moment before Hoseok realizes what Seokjin has asked. When he figures it out, he merely shrugs.

    “Not much. His name is Namjoon, they met in New Zealand when she was still pregnant. I don’t know much after that, once she found him we kind of fell out of contact. The last time I heard from her was just last week, she called to say she had come back to Seoul. She also said that Namjoon wanted to meet me, since he knows he’s not the father.” Hoseok grimaces. “I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I don’t think I can.”

    “What’s his name?”

    Hoseok glances sideways at Seokjin, frowning slightly. “Namjoon.”

    Seokjin shakes his head. The words feel strained coming out of his throat. “The baby.”

    “Jeon Ae Jin,” Hoseok says softly. Seokjin mouths the name, unable to bring sound to the syllables.

    “She wanted to name him after you, but she said it would have been too painful. So she could only use part of your name.”

    “Do you know what it means?”

    “From the hanja, she told me the whole name means ‘first real love.’” 

    And that was it.


 

    The final tidal wave had crashed, leaving Seokjin to slowly disintegrate. And in what Seokjin later dubbed to be nature’s empathy, a light rain starts to fall, its acidic qualities sprinkling both boys as they remain unmoving on the empty street. Seokjin sighs, silently wishing that if he stays put long enough, the acid will dissolve his entire being and he can disappear forever.

    As Kim Namjoon drives down the nearly empty street to make his way back home, he slows down a little more as he nears two men sitting on the curb, both seemingly lost in their own thoughts. The first one looks vaguely familiar, although he can’t place where he might have seen him...

    Before he has the chance to continue, something inside of Namjoon urges him to stop and roll down his window. “You guys alright?” The first man looks up and Namjoon is again struck at how familiar he seems. 

    “Yeah,” he replies. “Thanks.” The second man remains motionless, and as Namjoon pulls away, he wonders fleetingly if all the moisture on their faces was only from the rain. 

*****


So there you have it!

A quick note on the baby's name: I had a lot of fun and struggles figuring out what to name this baby. The Hanja chatacters have several different meanings, and therefore can be translated in several different ways. For the characters I chose, "Jeon" literally means "front, first, future," etc., while "Jin" is "truthful, very, right, real." And Ae can be translated to "love" or "kindness." If you wanna see the Hanja characters you can click on the names below! (Note: The definitions are all in Korean)

Jeon Ae Jin

Thanks for reading~~