When he looks back on it, he remembers that it was a calm day. Yet, somehow, it always felt like it had been a rainy, stormy one. It was a summer house, but they were there in the early fall, when the air bites at your skin and clouds hide the sun, giving everything a warm gray overtone. Thinking back on it, there were probably flowers blooming everywhere, trying to get the last bit of summer for the year. Birds chirping as they migrated for the winter, cats running around in search of warmth… It had been the perfect day, until it wasn’t. He comes back here every year, at the same time when they had come here together all those years ago, and spends a week drowning himself in memories and mistakes. Sometimes, on really good days, he wants to forget it all, wants to let go and move on. But then the bad days return and thoughts of what could be become thoughts of what could have been, but never will. Because he could never do the right thing, never say the right thing, never find the right words. There are rare days, ones that he considers extremely good, when he remembers and forgets all at the same time. Remembers only the good things and pretends like the bad ones were never there. He counts himself lucky on those days because they let him look back on what had happened without feeling like he could have done better, without thinking of all the things he would have done differently, said differently. They let him remember in peace.

Namjoon counts himself a lucky man on most days. He has his health, he has a nice job he likes, a decent apartment. Truthfully, Namjoon counts himself as a lucky man on most days, it’s just during that last week of September that he thinks that he may be among the unlucky ones. Because he had only ever fallen in love once in his life, with him, and that was a love that left him broken and empty. Namjoon had let his one true love slip through his fingers and it was all his fault and now he would never get him back. How truly unlucky one was to lose their chance at true love. Because Namjoon can’t simply forget him, can’t simply move on, can’t love again. He could never love again. So he comes here ever year on the 24^th of September and lets the memories eat at him until there is nothing left. And on the very last day of September, he packs his stuff and goes home to pick up the pieces, so that he can do it all over again next year. It’s not healthy. He knows that, he knows, and yet, and yet- He can’t change. He can’t, won’t, stop doing this to himself. Because it’s what he deserves. After what he did to him, it’s what he deserves.

It’s an especially cold day this year, but back then it must have been a warmer day, because Namjoon remembers wearing short sleeves. He thinks he likes the cold day better than the warm one, because now the air bites onto his exposed arms, rather than the warmth heating him up. Sometimes when he remembers what happened that day, he can see it clearly, as if it were yesterday. Other times, everything has a sort of haze over it, almost like a layer of static, and all sounds come out muffled. Sometimes though, the memories come back in flashes, images, sounds, smells, one at a time, slowly, painfully. And it never fails to upset him, how he had acted back then, how he had treated him. The one light in his life and he had managed to drive it away. Because that’s what Yoongi was to him, a light. With his gummy smiles and soft eyes, he could never be anything but. And he shone so brightly, especially in Namjoon’s darkest times. Somehow, Namjoon thinks it must be his fault the light extinguished. It has to be.

As he sits there on the porch, memories consuming him, Namjoon feels small arms wrap around him, and they almost feel like his arms, and then a soft, deep voice whispering in his ear that everything will be alright. And Namjoon wants to believe, wants to believe every year, so he turns around. But, when he does, there’s nothing there, and he’s once more reminded that it’s his fault.