((A/N: I changed one part of the story… Hope you don’t mind too much! I tried so hard to write it like you asked, but everything kind of just came out and I don’t know how to change it without making the plot unreasonable… Sorry L But hope you like it nonetheless!))

            I was in love with her.

            I was completely, utterly, undeniably in love with Park Yoonmi.

            It was coincidental, really, that we had the same last name. Or maybe it was destiny. Like I was destined to make her mine.

            Or maybe that’s just the hopeless unreasonable romantic in me speaking.

            Everything about her sort of just replaced Chaerin naturally, until she became much more than just a replacement. One night, when I couldn’t sleep in the heat, I started just comparing the differences between her and my ex-girlfriend who decided to leave me out of the blue. Crooked fingers to straight ones, slightly messy short hair to long straight hair, eyes full of emotions to eyes that were always sparkling, sparkling so much that you couldn’t help but wonder whether she was faking it sometimes.

            I compared their features, and found I loved Yoonmi’s much more.

            She reminded me of my best memories – drinking light sweet coffee in a sunlit café on a carefree morning, cherry blossom petals in my hair as I took a walk in the park, out in the rain with no way home for several hours and in the end screwing everything and getting absolutely drenched. Bowing to roaring applause on a stage with lights so bright you can’t see the faces of the people clapping and cheering for you.

            She was my best memories. In the short span of one month that I’d known her for, she’d overridden my brain’s definition of happiness and replaced it with her smile.

Despite how hard I’d fallen for her, I didn’t want to ruin our relationship by confessing to her. I decided to wait a bit, until we’d gotten to know each other better, until she became fully comfortable with me.

            That plan stayed intact for about a day.

            I was browsing through a rack of snapbacks, caught between two equally appealing ones, when I heard her oh-so-familiar voice just outside the store’s entrance. My head snapped up, and there she was, the girl that did strange things to my heart unintentionally, laughing and practically lighting up my world in the process.

            I grinned, taking a step towards her, before I realized she was with another guy.

            My heart sank to the bottom of my shoes.

           He looked about my age, maybe younger, and was taller than me – I could even tell from here – by several inches. His hair was neatly combed, falling perfectly over his forehead, and as I watched, she hit him playfully on the arm and reached up to smack the back of his head.

            My eye twitched.

            Possessiveness and self-criticism battled it out inside my head, bitter green jealousy making me want to go over and punch the guy square in the jaw fighting with wonder at how I could’ve possibly thought that I was the only person in the entire world who’d ever made her happy for priority in my plate of emotions.

            I realized with rapidly spreading dread that they were approaching me, their voices growing louder and louder.

            “-should’ve seen your face,” the guy was saying, ducking to avoid being hit in the head again. “Your eyes were practically wider than your mouth.”

            “I will murder you,” she said dangerously, halting in her tracks when she noticed me standing there slack-jawed. “Oh, hey, Jimin.”

            I shuffled awkwardly, coughing and trying to avoid eye contact. “Um, hi.” I resisted the urge to smack myself out of embarrassment.

            “Hi,” she repeated, a new emotion in her eyes. “Oh!” She suddenly remembered the boy standing beside her, and elbowed him in the ribs. Something dark and bitter spread into my heart at their exchange. “Jimin, meet my best friend and the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” she added, rolling her eyes, “Jeon Jungkook. Kookie, this is Jimin, the guy I was telling you about.”

            My eyes snapped up at her words, hopeful. She’d been talking about me to her friends? “Nice to meet you,” I said as casually as I could, sticking out a hand which he took and unexpectedly pulled me into a bro hug. I almost choked at how friendly he was being upon first meeting.

            “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Jungkook said, grinning. “Seriously. Yoonmi talks about you all the time-”

            “Jeon Jungkook,” Yoonmi turned murderous eyes on him before looking back at me and blushing fiercely.

            I raised an eyebrow at her, marvelling over how I was able to keep my cool even though internally I was screaming OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. “You do?”

            “Oh, that,” she said, adorably pink. “That’s- um- I, uh… It’s not what you think- Dammit, Jeon Jungkook, I will kill you.”

            Her friend grinned. “Yeah, anyways, I don’t think you’d want to see the girl who” he inserted a few suggestive coughs “obviously likes you as a friend of course” a few more coughs “murder someone in a very violent and graphic way, so we’re gonna go now. It was nice meeting you, Jimin.” He stuck out a hand for another bro hug. “Make a move on her,” he murmured while we were slapping each other’s backs.

            I raised my eyebrows at him, and he merely winked before waving goodbye and turning away. I watched them walk out of the store, Yoonmi thinking they were far enough and smacking him over the head, yelling at him for being an idiot.

            I grinned, my heart fluttering. Maybe I should confess.

~

            In the end, after one long night of mulling things over in my head, I decided to only tell Jungkook.

            We’d been best friends since middle school, when he accidentally got glue in my hair and I retaliated, sending both of us to the principal’s office. Telling him and seeing his reaction would surely break my heart, but what would hurt more is if I didn’t tell him at all and left without any goodbyes. Besides, despite his idiotic nature, he was quite logical sometimes, and would give me good advice.

            And, if nothing else, he deserved to know. Above everyone else I knew. Even Jimin, but only because I still wasn’t quite sure what he meant to me.

            It went like any other big confession – I kept finding reasons to put it off another day, because Jungkook looked too happy or too sad or too distracted for me to drop the bomb. But one day, I couldn’t hide it from him anymore.

            It was when I was lying on our hill, the one behind the forest bordering our school that we’d discovered in freshman year, staring at the clear sky and thinking about pretty much everything – running away, my future, Park Jimin. He’d found me there after school, and realizing that I was too distracted to hear his rant about how worried he was when he couldn’t find me anywhere, dropped to the ground next to me and stayed silent.

            After five minutes of nothing but the white noise of the city around us and our thoughts, Jungkook finally spoke up.

            “Yoonmi?” His voice was soft, and I instantly knew what he was going to say next would probably shatter me.

            “Yes?” I said anyways, preparing myself.

            “We’ll always have each other, right?” he asked quietly.

            No amount of emotional preparation and inner counseling could’ve prepared me for that.

            Pain tore through my heart, and I curled into the fetal position, feeling tears coming and letting them flow freely. I’d never had to hide anything from Jungkook. He was the only person in the entire world whom I didn’t have to pretend anything with, and the thought of going to my aunt’s and having to start a new life without someone like that close to me was enough for my heart to break into a million pieces.

            “Jungkook,” I mumbled brokenly through my tears, somehow finding him in my haze and pulling him close to me. He didn’t ask any questions, just put an arm around me, and that hurt me even more.    

            How can I possibly live without him?

            “Yoonmi,” he asked gently, patting my back soothingly, “what’s wrong?”

            “I want to stay behind for you,” was all I could express in the mess of emotions that was currently my heart. “I want to bring you with me, for ’s sake. Oh my God, Jungkook, I can’t possibly leave you…”

            “You’re leaving?” His voice suddenly hardened. “If it’s your parents’ fault then I swear I will-”

            “No,” I said desperately, clutching at his shirt as if that could make everything go away, “no, Kookie, I’m running away.”

            He froze underneath me, his rhythmic patting against my back stopping abruptly. “What?”

            “It was Yoonseok’s idea,” I said, beyond grateful that he didn’t push me away. “I didn’t tell you what’s been happening, because, oh God, I knew you would say the same… Something happened, and now they’re pretending like I don’t even exist. I can’t do this, Jungkook. I make my own meals and pay for my own things. If it’s already like this, how will I survive college? How will I even get into college at all if the only people who can pay for it act like I don’t exist?”

            “You can stay with me,” Jungkook said, sounding just as desperate as me. “They won’t look for you, and my parents can take care of you…”

            “Jungkook, your parents already have three other kids to take care of,” I reminded him, looking up and meeting his broken, tearful eyes.

That hurt me more than anything ever could.

“No, Jungkookie,” I whispered, brushing a tear away, “don’t cry…”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t leave me.” His voice was thick with tears and pain.

            “I have to, I have to think about my future, my future that if I stay won’t exist-”

            “Just report them to the police!” Jungkook yelled suddenly, his voice shaky with anger, and I jumped. Seeing my reaction probably calmed him down or something like that, because his breathing immediately slowed and he pressed his mouth against the top of my head, mumbling a ‘sorry’ into my hair.

            “Yoonseok,” I replied simply.  “I can’t do that to him. They adore him, Kookie – you know that. And no matter how mature he is, whatever foster home they’ll put him in, he won’t be used to it. I don’t want to do that to him, Jungkook. I know he has to grow up one day or another, I just don’t want to be the cause of it.”

            He didn’t reply, and we drifted off into silence again, this time punctuated by our sniffles as well as the city around us. My mind was blank, my body numb – I decided that thinking or trying to distinguish what emotion I was feeling would be no use and would probably end up hurting me even more.

            After a much longer pause than the previous one, Jungkook took a deep breath. “Promise me you’ll text and email and call as much as you can.”

            I nodded frantically, attempting to pull him closer until I realized that that wasn’t going to do anything and burst out into a fresh wave of tears. “I-I promise,” I blubbered, latching onto my best friend’s body like a koala.

            “Yoonmi,” Jungkook said gently, and I tilted my head up to meet his eyes. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispered, brushing a stray hair out of my eyes. “It’ll all work out. I believe in you.”

            I couldn’t do anything but nod and bury my face back into Jungkook’s shoulder, my heart being torn apart into smaller and smaller pieces with each passing second.

--

            In some earlier meeting between us, Yoonmi had told me her birthday. I suddenly remembered it was coming up, and decided it was the best time to confess.

            As expected, the days dragged on until the Saturday that I would tell her my feelings. I lay in bed virtually sleepless each and every night, playing out the endless possibilities in my head. Would she accept me? Decline? Reveal that she had feelings for someone else? Confess that she was a serial killer and was messed up in the head? I didn’t know. It frustrated me, how hard this girl was to read.

            On Saturday, after a long night, I woke up and realized with startling clarity that today was the day.

            I sat up immediately, rolling awkwardly off the bed and scampering over to the mirror leaning against my closet door. I stared at my reflection, trying to adjust the angle of my shoulders, how much teeth were showing in my smile, how to look awkward and cute (although the first part wasn’t hard) so she would let me down as gently as possible.

            Jimin, you idiot. You haven’t even texted her yet. What if she can’t meet up today?

            God, that would be awful. Grabbing my phone from my bedside table, I flopped back down on my bed with my phone raised eye-level and quickly pulled up her contact.

            Hey, can you meet me by the bench tonight? Around 8 or 9?

            Her response came almost immediately afterwards.

            I can’t. Jimin… you won’t ever see me again.

            My heart dropped to my feet.

            Shaking away the wave of panic and hurt and worry that threatened to overwhelm me, I managed to type out a response. My eyes were watering, and I casually brushed a tear away when I realized I was crying.

            What?

            First Chaerin, and now Yoonmi? At least I’d spent several blissful years with the former. At least we’d at least forged out a relationship. Yoonmi… I didn’t even know what I meant to her. What she meant to me.

            Perhaps I was just another pawn in her story, and she’d discarded of me as soon as she’d found a more useful piece.

            Unable to control the sobs that racked through my body at that thought, I rolled over, clutched the sheets and let the pain overwhelm me.

            I love you, I wanted to send, but she already wasn’t listening.

--

            The text from Jimin hurt more than I wanted it to.

            I’d thought that the only people who I’d seriously regret leaving behind were Jungkook and Yoonseok, but Jimin had proven me wrong with two grammatically incorrect sentences.

            Meet me by the bench tonight? Around 8 or 9?

            Oh my God, he wanted to confess to me. A beautiful boy I couldn’t even label my relationship with wanted to confess that he harbored feelings towards me.

My vision blurred and my lip trembled as I quickly typed out a response. It was harsh, it would break his heart, but it was the best I could do for him at this point – just cut off everything and leave without a backwards glance. My phone vibrated not a minute later, but I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t leave him with any form of hope whatsoever, because chances were we would never meet again.

            At some point, I realized that my fingers were typing all by themselves, and I looked down to the message I would never send.

            I love you, Park Jimin.

            I’d thought I had no more tears to cry, but apparently I did, because a tear broke through and slid silently down my face as I leaned against the bus window, backpack clutched in my lap and a new life as my destination.

((A/N: I almost cried while writing this… Hope you like it! Don’t forget to comment, upvote, subscribe? *flashes thumbs up* The final installment is coming soon!))