Chapter 9 - It's better if you leave me alone

The rest of the day was pretty ordinary. Somehow Jisoo wasn’t as annoyed as usual though. She actually felt a little at peace. Maybe talking to Mr. Lee actually did help her. She wasn’t even angry at Yoongi even though she had no interesting meeting him soon. She was way to confused of her feelings for him. After dinner she went back into her room. She wanted to do her “homework”. She thought about things she enjoyed and what she hated. It was hard. However, the thing she had to think most about was Yoongi. She wasn’t sure if she liked him or if she hated him. She liked him for all sort of reasons: he made her feel safe, he listened, he saw her as a normal person, he seemed to have issues on his own and he was extremely talented. His amazing looks were also something she more than enjoyed. At the same time, she hated him for making her so confused. He always ended up interfering with her life and her plans. He had this annoying tendency to know everything and it annoyed her. But the worst thing was that she had a huge crush on him. Even though she would never admit it, she knew it. If the Seokjin she saw, was really something from her subconscious then he had already told her. He knew she liked Yoongi. At the same time, she was scared. She wondered if he could handle her secrets and if she could handle his. She didn’t really know much about him anyways. Another thing she hated was the way they got to know each other. The first time they met was just a coincidence but after that she hoped to become friends. Then she ended up here… This wasn’t how she wanted to start her friendship.

She worked on her list all night long until she fell asleep on her table. The next day she was actually excited to see Mr. Lee. It somehow felt really good the day before to just talk to him, and she wondered what he wanted to do with the list.

“Ms. Kim just looking at these two lists, it supports my diagnosis. I wanted you to make these just to make you reflect on what’s going on inside of you”, he explained.

“What is your diagnosis then?” Jisoo wanted to know.

“From what it looks like you suffer from depression and high functioning anxiety. I also think there is a certain lack of self-love that’s not helping with your situation.”

Just reflecting on what the doctor said Jisoo was speechless. It felt like she was hit in the face… she never even considered any of these things. She had always thought she was simply grieving and a little bit socially awkward. It never occurred to her that she could have a depression.

“I want us to work on it one by one. First, I want to work on the anxiety part as this one will be the easiest for us to solve. It seems like you have extreme fear of the future. With your brother gone, you feel like all your guidance is gone. That’s why I want to know, how do you imagine your future at the moment?”

“I don’t really know… I guess I’m going to college and then find a job.”

“And that’s what you want… right?” Mr. Lee asked her further.

“No… that’s what everyone else just expects. I… don’t know what I want”.

Mr. Lee nodded. “On the lists you gave me you wrote that you enjoy drawing and dancing, listening to music, as well as going on adventures. Maybe you should think about if one of these things could either help you to find a new path or plays an even bigger role.”

The rest of the session they kept talking about how Jisoo first started dancing, what her favorite pictures were that she drew and how she got immersed in these things.

“Your new homework for today will be as following. I want you to imagine your future as a dancer or as an artist. It doesn’t need to be realistic. I just want you to imagine it and then listen to yourself deep down and remember how you feel about it. Maybe you will do something in your future that you already enjoy or something you didn’t even try yet. Therefore, this is the first step in finding out what you like and what you’re good at”.

Jisoo wasn’t sure if this could be of any help but she was convinced to just to it. After the group session she went back to her room. Initially she wanted to go up to the rooftop, but she didn’t want anyone to find out about it and she definitely didn’t want to meet Yoongi. She wanted to take her homework from Mr. Lee seriously and actually thought of a future of being an artist or a dancer. It was a nice thought, but she couldn’t really classify the feeling. Her phone made her wake up from her deep thoughts. She received a message.

               7:52PM ~ Are you still mad at me?

It was Yoongi. Of course she was still mad! She was thinking about what to reply but got another message from him.

               7:53PM ~ Can we talk? I’ll wait on the roof…

Was he expecting her to just come as he pleased? He was so… annoying! At the same time Jisoo was curious what he had to say and decided to go up anyways. As she arrived she saw Yoongi just standing there looking at the city. His eyes seemed lost in the view. He had his hands in the pockets of his pants as if he was bored or just simply waiting. Jisoo approached him determent and stopped right in front of him.

“So? What do you want to talk about?” she asked him in a really sassy tone.

He finally noticed her standing there and turned around. Jisoo was a little shocked to see his face. His look wasn’t as usual. He didn’t have that sassy smirk he often had or that cool face as if he didn’t care about anything. Right now he just looked somewhat vulnerable. Jisoo regretted asking him in that way.

“Are you OK? Did something happen?” she wanted to know.

“I’m sorry…” was all he could reply. Then his eyes were sliding down to the floor.

Just what on earth was going on? She started to be worried. She came closer to him and took his face in both of her hands. “Look at me!”

He finally looked at her again. “It’s my fault…” he said. 

What was his fault? She couldn’t follow. “What do you mean?” she asked him.

“I think I live because I can’t die. It feels like my greed is becoming a living hell, but I don’t know how to stop it”.

Jisoo didn’t understand a single word but she knew she had to be there for him right now as he had been there for her last time. She hugged him for a long time, without anyone saying a single word. Then Jisoo heard some sort of sarcastic laugh. “Once you become a monster you can’t be human anymore, I think it’s true…” Yoongi said. He released himself from the hug and looked at her. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked you to come”. And just like that he headed towards the door to go back down.

What the hell was going on? Jisoo didn’t want to leave him alone like this and followed him down. They passed Jisoo’s room and headed towards the third door next to hers. Maybe that was Yoongi’s room? “Yah! Min Yoongi! Wait!” Jisoo said.

“It’s better if you leave me alone” he said and closed the door behind him. Jisoo was just standing there in front of the closed door not knowing what to do. She just stood there for a while, then she decided to wait for him to open up to her. She was sitting in front of his room waiting patiently.  

“Unnie… what are you doing?” little Yeon Ho asked her.

She smiled at him as he was just looking at her with a tilted head. “I’m waiting for a friend…”

“That’s huyng’s door… is he your friend?” he asked her.

Jisoo nodded her head. Yeon Ho yawned loudly. “Good luck Unnie, I’m going to sleep.” He said and entered the door she was facing. She wanted to know what time it was. For once she took her phone with her just in case Yoongi would decide to not show up. She checked the time and saw that it was almost 10PM! Had she been sitting there for almost two hours now? She must’ve been crazy.

“If you’re going to keep sitting here you might as well just come in…” Yoongi’s voice behind her said. He had opened the door and looked down on her. Jisoo got up and entered his room without waiting for him to say anything. His room was so interesting. His walls were painted in a light grey and there were pieces of paper stuck to the walls. There were also a few photographs. Other than that, it seemed like her room. His desk was messy though. There were books, notebooks, loose pieces of paper all over the floor around his desk. His chair was full of clothes but still it didn’t seem untidy. It just had to be like this. Jisoo didn’t even mind it. At that very moment Jisoo didn’t care if she was interfering with his personal space. She took of her shoes and sat down on his bed as the chair was occupied anyways. Then she crossed her arms in front of her and glared at Yoongi. “What’s wrong? You can’t just make a scene and then disappear on me! It’s not fair.” She complained.

“Sorry. I was just out of my mind”, he tried to explain.

Jisoo wasn’t satisfied with the answer at all. She rose her eyebrows and glared again.

“Stop it or you might stab me with your eyes” he said. His tone was back to normal. Jisoo knew it better though. She knew he was pretending to be OK even though he wasn’t. She knew it all too well as she was doing the exact same thing most of the times.

“I hope tomorrow will be different from today, I’m just wishing that tomorrow you will feel better, but please don’t pretend to be OK. Not in front of me.” She asked of him. He didn’t reply anything. Jisoo couldn’t stand looking at him standing at that door so far away from her. She stood up, walked towards him and took his hand.

“Last time you listened to all of my crap so this time it’s my turn”, she told him.

Yoongi looked her in the face. “I just don’t know if I can keep going… I wonder if… Would I have changed? If I had chosen a different path, if I had stopped and looked back then maybe… my greed wouldn’t consume me as much as it does now. I’m just scared that I’ll regret some things later on.”

Jisoo pushed away some hairs from his eyes and said: “You know I think it’s ok to be greedy sometimes. If it helps why not?”

“There’s just too many of these countless, infinite thoughts in my head. What if it turns out bad and I’ll destroy even more? I shouldn’t be telling you this in the first place.” He continued.

“I don’t know what it is that you’re so afraid of but if you don’t try you’ll never find out. Maybe it turns out good in the end, maybe all of your fear is unnecessary.”

He smiled at her. “I really hope so… thank you… for telling me this”, he said while pressing her hand. “I think I should get my things ready for tomorrow. It’s the last week of school for this year…”

“Sure…” Jisoo replied, let go of his hand and went back to sit on his bed again.

“You’re not going to leave?” he asked while raising his eyebrows.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Not necessarily…” he quietly said. Without hesitating he just prepared his things for the next day and shoved some books in a big bag. He went to the closet and took out some clothes as well that he also put inside of the bag. Jisoo just looked at him doing all that. He would probably stay away the entire week again, which left her somewhat empty. After he was done preparing his things he came over to the bed and sat across from her.

“So how did it go with the therapy session?” he asked her.

Jisoo smiled at him. “Aren’t you trying to change the subject right now?”

“Maybe?” he replied.

Jisoo had to laugh. “You’re such a handful do you know that?”. All Yoongi did was lifting his shoulders as an answer.

“It was good I think… It was a relieve to talk about it I think. We didn’t talk much yet, but I somehow think he could help me to see hope. Even if I’m slow I will walk with my own feet and get better. I don’t want to be like this forever.”

“Like what?” Yoongi wanted to know.

“Promise you won’t tell anyone… it’s a secret…” Jisoo demanded. Yoongi nodded again.

“The doctor thinks I might suffer from depression… actually I think he might be right too. Before talking to him I’ve never seen my negativity that way but after he explained it to me it seemed to make sense somehow”.

Yoongi just looked at her without saying anything. Jisoo regretted telling him for a second. Maybe he really thought she was weird by telling him that. Why would he even care about her mental state…

“Do you think I’m weird?” she asked him.

“No” Yoongi said. He had to laugh and said in a sarcastic voice: “Isn’t it ironic? We’re both broken but find each other in the same place…”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think I’m taking pills and live over here?” he asked her directly.

“Wait does that mean you have depressions as well?” Jisoo didn’t know what to think. She had indeed suspected him to have some sort of secret. The sudden changes in his mood, and facial expressions. The things he said… it did somehow make sense to her.

“But wait… if you’re not normal either and you live here… doesn’t that make you a patient as well?”

“I was before” he said, “but after a while I got better. Then a whole lot of things happened that led me to the conclusion that this here was a safe place for me. As Mr. Bang is a friend of my mother I somehow managed to convince them to just let me live here”.

Jisoo was a little shocked. She didn’t expect this. She had imagined something more movie-like for him to live in a house full of crazy people. In the end he was just vulnerable as well and wanted to feel safe. It wasn’t that Jisoo was disappointed or anything, but she was surprised. The worst part was that she was drawn to him even more now. That’s why he never thought she was weird or anything. He just accepted her the way she was and she would accept him as well. For her the fact that he told her meant, that she could fully trust him. It meant that they were both the same.

“Can I ask you something?” Jisoo started.

“Sure, go ahead”.

“How did you find out? About your depression?” she wanted to understand him more and also wanted to find a way to understand herself.

Yoongi waited for a moment to reply. He thought about it deeply. “I think it started with fear of failure maybe? I didn’t go out anymore, I distanced myself from my family and my friends, as I didn’t want to be a burden to them. I felt like a useless person that couldn’t make a change. This country, even this world just doesn’t really give you opportunities to be who you really are. I think just thinking about it my mental state became polluted. In school I always compared myself with others. I thought either they are not really thinking about their lives or I’m just the one that has weird thoughts. It’s been a long time since my everyday life started to kill my passions. That was also the time when I stopped to play the piano.”

Jisoo didn’t want to dig deeper but at the same time she wanted to know everything. How could he overcome everything, how did he deal with it? “How about your family? Did you tell them?”

“I told them after I went to my first counseling session. They got counseling with me, but they said the hardly knew me. They didn’t know what was going on in my life as I’ve always kept them out of it. I started wondering if I even knew myself”.

Jisoo took his hand in hers and looked at it. She didn’t dare to look at him directly. “Then how did you overcome it?”.

“I didn’t… I wanted to end it, but I guess it wasn’t my time to go yet”.

Jisoo believed she knew what he was trying to get at but didn’t want to ask further. Jisoo let go of his hand and moved over to his side. Then she wrapped her arms around his and put her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you for telling me” she whispered. For a while they just sat there like this. Usually Yoongi’s attendance made Jisoo a little uncomfortable as she didn’t know what she was feeling about him. For some reason this wasn’t the case this time. She felt really nice just feeling him breath and to feel his warmth. She couldn’t pretend any longer. Even though she didn’t know him for long she felt a strong connection. She liked him a lot. He made her feel safe and real. With him she didn’t have to be afraid of saying what she thought. She could speak her mind and act like her true self in front of him without him judging her. Of course, she noticed that there were some things he didn’t tell her but she didn’t mind. She reflected on what she had told him so far. He didn’t know anything about Seokjin or who her parents were. He didn’t know anything about her past. With him it felt like Jisoo could just live in the moment without worrying about her past or her future.

“Can I stay here tonight?” she asked without realizing what she was actually saying.

“If you want to… but I have to get up really early though”, Yoongi replied.

“I don’t mind” she said. After an awkward pause Jisoo jumped off the bed to arrange the pillows and the blanket. Yoongi just looked at her with an amused face.

“Aren’t you going to help me?” she glared at him. He finally got off the bed as well and helped her with the blanket.

“I’m gonna go change. Do you want something to change into as well or do you want to stay like that?” he asked. In that moment even Yoongi seemed a bit awkward too, even though he used to be so careless before.

Jisoo felt her cheeks blushing. She waggled her hands and told him she was ok like this. Yoongi just nodded and went into the bathroom. To overcome the awkwardness Jisoo just went to bed and pulled the blanked way up to her face. Why did she even ask this without thinking about it? At the same time she didn’t want to leave him alone tonight. She wanted to stay by his side… Yoongi came out of the bathroom wearing grey sweatpants and a black shirt. Jisoo noticed that she didn’t only like him mentally but also physically. He was just really good looking. His chaotic black hair, his slim figure and that more than attractive face. Maybe it really wasn’t a good idea to stay there after all. Yoongi came over to turn on the little light on his nightstand and then went across the room to turn of the big light. He came back to the bed but just stood there.

“I can just sleep on the floor”, he suggested.

“Why would you do that?” Jisoo wondered.

“Well… just yesterday you said you don’t want to be friends anymore, so I’m not sure what kind of signal I’m getting from you right now…”

“I think we have told each other enough things to be considered friends even after a fight” Jisoo argued.

Yoongi nodded and went into the bed. They were facing each other and just looking at each other. Jisoo had a funny thought. Maybe he was someone that could help her find her future, or maybe he was her future. She had never really been in love or anything, but she had also never felt as close to another person. The only exception was Seokjin. Even though they weren’t real siblings Jisoo never had any sort of romantic feeling towards him and as far as she knew Seokjin also just saw her as his sister. Just looking at Yoongi made her forget all her troubles. She was more concerned for him. She wanted to help him find his happiness even if it meant that she would take care of her own happiness later. As he said, it was OK to not have a dream if you could find a moment of happiness. Jisoo believed that Yoongi was her short moment of happiness. With him she could just relax and she wanted to enjoy it until the time to face reality came.

“It’s past 1AM… I have to get up in around 4 hours. I’ll turn off the lights if you don’t mind” Yoongi said quietly.

“Ok” Jisoo replied. She was glad after the light was off. Like this he could at least not see her red tomato-like face. Even though she didn’t feel uncomfortable she still felt the blood rushing through her veins.

“Maybe you should put on an alarm on your phone as well… I don’t know what the rules are concerning sleeping in other people’s rooms but I don’t think they will like this”.

Jisoo nodded and activated her alarm on her phone as well. She could still see his face even though the light was off. He was staring right at her and for a while she just met his gaze.

“Thank you for letting me stay” she finally said. Yoongi lifted his hand to delicately caress her hair. “Thanks for staying” he then said. Jisoo smiled at him like she never did before. It wasn’t just a smile of being polite or thinking something was funny for a second. She was happy in that moment. She then moved closer to him to embrace him. They were pretty much in the same position as they were last time on the rooftop. This time she didn’t want to get out of the situation though. She just wanted to feel his warmth and smell his nice body fragrance. She wasn’t someone who liked that much of contact in general, but for Yoongi she would make an exception.

Yoongi as well didn’t push her away in any ways, but even embraced her as well. He pulled her closer and put his head on hers. Just like this Jisoo slept comfortably until she woke up from Yoongi’s alarm. She noticed him still being close to her. One of his hands was laying on her belly the other arm was under Jisoo’s head. Jisoo turned around to release his arm. She reached over him to turn on the light on the nightstand. She sat down in the bed and had her hands in front of her eyes. The light was just too bright.

“We should get up”, she said. Yoongi just crossed his arms in front of his face. He really wasn’t a morning person… Jisoo thought it was somehow cute. After a few seconds he finally got up. He checked the time on his phone and got ready to go. Jisoo just sat there watching him. Yoongi was ready to go and put on a big baggy jacket. He indeed had great style. He walked over to Jisoo.

“I have to leave now, but you can just stay here and sleep a little longer if you want”, he suggested.

Jisoo nodded and smiled at him. Yoongi put his backpack over his shoulder. Then he took Jisoo’s face in both of his hands and kissed her on her forehead.

“I’ll see you soon…” he said and left the room without waiting for any kind of reaction.

Jisoo just let herself sink back into the pillow, put her hands on her face and smiled like a fool. She wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep now after what he had just done, but Jisoo didn’t mind. She wanted to wake up like this every day.