As I sat at my desk, I waited patiently for his name to pop up.  I didn’t want to miss his call, so I sat and waited for that cute little picture to appear.  The one we took before he left for Seoul.  

We had decided to walk to the park close to our home, take a trip down memory lane before he left.  On the park bench on the other side of the playground sat a young mother and father, watching with happy eyes as their daughter played in the sand with her friend.  It pulled me in, the way they met each other eyes and looked madly in love.  I wondered wat that felt like. 

“Nari,” Jimin’s soft voice broke me from my concentration.  I turned my head slightly to meet Jimin’s glassy brown eyes, he had a soft smile on his face but there was a hint of sadness playing is his eyes.

“Hm?” I hummed low and slow under my breath. 

“Are you worried?”

It was a simple question, was I worried Jimin would forget about me?  Worried we would never be face to face again?  Worried one day Jimin would realize that he had to put in too much work to be my friend and drop me?

Him leaving changed nothing in our relationship, part of me had always known that one day Jimin and I wouldn’t be connected at the hip.  Better it be today, him chasing his dreams – than screwing up some day and him dropping me out of spite.

I forced a smile onto my face, “why would I be worried?  You are going to be the best idol.  Some day you’ll be rich and buy me all the meat I could ever eat!”

Jimin laughed, the sadness dancing disappearing for that moment.  I pulled out my phone and pointed the camera towards him, his laughing had stopped and he put a big cheesy smile on his face for me to snap a picture of him.  During the last decade together, I had grown to adore his big cheeky smile.  The way his eyes would turn to slits and his nose would crunch.  He looked overjoyed when he smiled like this.

I flipped the screen over to show him the screen, “yah!  That’s a bad picture, delete it!”

He reached for the phone and I held it back, shifting away as he chased me.

My head jolted up, “Jimin!”

It took me a moment to adapt to the dark room, my mouth had become dry and my eyes heavy.  I had fallen asleep.  My hands darted out to my phone, the bright screen – a yellow daffodil as my wallpaper showing me that I had no missed calls nor text messages.

Had I dreamed everything?  Pulling up my recent text messages – Jimin had offered a video chat earlier this afternoon, that was real.

Had he forgotten about me?

There was a sadness that developed me, all the excuses I had given him this point forward slipping away from me.

His is busy.

Practice probably went late and he didn’t want to interrupt me.

Maybe he isn’t getting enough sleep.

The managers don’t want them talking to girls.

I stood up from my desk, waddling over to my bed and crawling in.  Why would he tell me he wanted to talk if he didn’t?

Hot tears threated to fall but I blinked them away as quickly as I could.  What was I supposed to do now?  Who was I going to talk to? 

In all my time with Jimin, there were moments where I wanted him to leave me alone.  Enjoying solitude was something that I valued from time to time, how I wished now all those moments I had cherished him and hadn’t pushed him away.

Breathing in a deep shaky breath, I turned so I was on my back staring at the ceiling that I could not see in the black void.

In my head I had started to count, from 1 until I couldn’t count anymore, my eyes heavy and sleep taking over.  Maybe there would be an explanation in the morning.

-

The next day at school, I walked around as if there was a dark cloud hanging over my head.  No word from Jimin since yesterday afternoon.  As each hour passed, the defeat sunk in deeper.

“Nari,” my head snapped up from the paper I had been scribbling on for the past 20 minutes, “class ended 10 minutes ago.  You can leave.”

The day had melted away f