of phone calls
Between Truthsbehind him and Jungkook broke into a mad run, jumping recklessly down the flight of stairs. It was early enough on a Saturday morning that his dangerous rush had not run down into accidents. 'Good.'
His vain bravado, however, had failed to consider unexpected distractions.
Jungkook could not care for the nice cool morning breeze in peak summer in his rush but could not quite treat the phone vibration against his thigh with the same inattention. He only knew of two people that would call. But his mother never let it ring for this long.
So, he struggled to pull the phone out of his jeans pocket and that disrupted the relentless pace he had pushed himself to.
"Hey?" He said, his breath short.
He heard rustling.
"Can you come, now?" He recognised the voice, but she had sounded strange. Like something was wrong.
"Yein?" He said, concerned, "What's wrong?" Try as he might, his steps and breathing were lapsing badly out of control.
"I don't know—" her words broke into sobs and Jungkook slowed into an abrupt halt.
"Yein," He said firmly, "I need to know what happened."
"She—my mom—God, there's blood! What do I do?!" She was hysterical and the adrenalin thrummed in him like a revving engine would.
"Where are you?" He asked urgently.
"Home—"She answered. Already, Jungkook had broken into a run madder and more frantic in the opposite direction, before she pleaded to him pitifully, "You would come, would you? Hurry, please," she said.
"I will. I promise," He told her. Then, "Did you call for an ambulance?"
"No!" She was horrified by her own answer.
"Hey, hey, listen. It's fine. I'll call them," He said, trying to calm her, "Stay on the phone with me, okay?"
She was put on hold by an incoming call. Jungkook unthinkingly declined and put her on hold himself to dial emergency.
Much later, when he was sitting upright on the hard chair of the emergency waiting room, uncomfortable and cold, Jungkook realised that he could not recall the morning in vivid clarity. But he knew how mindless he could get when the adrenaline was smashing his system since the feeling was not a stranger after all. Life seemed to pass by like flashes in the dark. It felt intimately akin to when he would run madly on the field during training. Instinctive. Unthinking.
He usually loved the mad rush. But the offbeat happening of the day had tired him out like conversations with an old acquaintance would.
His gaze hovered over Yein, who was asleep; torso stretched out over two chairs, head cushioned by his lap. She must have been even more tired.
His phone buzzed again, then. An unfamiliar private number. Jungkook let it ring until his screen went dark. Abruptly, he was reminded of the call he had declined earlier. It was a little curious that he was getting all these calls.
Jungkook scrolled down his call log to find10 missed calls. From three different numbers. All unknown. It was strange. His phone vibrated again in his hand. Jungkook had quickly recognised it as the one that had dialled him the most. He did not contemplate this time and swiped to answer it immediately.
"Hello?" He said.
"Hello. Jungkook? Thank God," The caller greeted back. Jungkook heard his relief but could not recognise him.
"Who's this?" Jungkook asked.
Pause.
"Yugyeom," He said. Then, "I've been trying to get hold of you. We all did. We left messages too. Is everything okay?"
Something heavy settled on his chest that Jungkook could not shake off.
"Something important suddenly came up. What's up?" Jungkook said. Then, he quietly slid away from Yein and set her head carefully on the seat that he just vacated. She stirred but did not wake up so, he moved to a corner of the room to talk comfortably.
Yugyeom had wanted to press for more but decided against it. Instead, he said, "Did you know there's practice today?"
"I was going to be there...but there's a family emergency and...I couldn't make it..." Jungkook tried to explain. It was useless to hope that his absence would slip out of the coaches' scrutiny. Jungkook asked, his words slow, "Are they mad?"
Suddenly, his decision earlier was becoming real.
"It was the try-outs, Jungkook..." Yugyeom said.
Pause.
"What do you mean?" Jungkook said. His mind refused to comprehend the situation.
"It wasn't practice. It was the official try-out," Yugyeom said clearly, "The one where they look for players to be part of the Sixteen."
"That can't be true...they said it was practice," Jungkook said.
"They did..." Yugyeom said.
But Jungkook was quick to hear his subtle confession, "You knew that it wasn't?"
"I knew...but so did everyone else!" Yugyeom said defensively, "The seniors warned us yesterday. It had always been like this every other year. Like some sick tradition...they will spring up a "practice" session last minute only to tell us that it was the official try-outs during warmup."
"Yesterday? No one told me anything yesterday! Why didn't you say anything?" Jungkook said accusingly.
"They told us during drinks. How am I supposed to know that you were already wasted?" Yugyeom said equally heated.
His miserable life was fraying apart in distress. He was already living as if he was walking on the edge of a cliff and apparently that had not been miserable enough. As if he did not deserve anything good. As if it was his place to be poor and miserable in this life no matter how hard he tried.
"Bull," Jungkook spat, "If you were a ing friend, you would know that I wasn't there yesterday."
Yugyeom started, "And if you care to be a friend you would at least tell me if you weren't coming. Answer one of my calls or at least message me back but you didn't even save my number. I covered for you. Told the coaches you were out sick. So bad that you couldn't even tell it to his face. I knew he wasn't going to be happy, but I stick my head out for you.
Yugyeom continued with his tirade, "Because I thought something bad happened to you. It didn't make sense that you would disappear like that. Not when I thought you wanted this as much as I do. If the coach knew I lied for you, I won't make the team this year..." he breathed, "...and I won't make it ever. So, don't tell me how to be a friend, Jungkook...not when you don't see me as one."
Yugyeom had not wasted another second before hanging up. The silence after that was deafening.
.
There was no exact moment that he could pinpoint to be the start of the fallout. There were, however, exact people he could blame.
'Screw the coaches.'
And in his madness, Jungkook had even blamed the flaxen girl he saw under the moonlight the night before. 'Screw her.' If only he had ignored that momentary pull of curiosity for her...then there would be no broken habits and normalcy broken. Everything could have stayed the same.
Comments