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- Disappointed," he murmured to his blurred reflection in the clear water of the fountain. - That's how his fifteen-year-old self would feel if he saw it now.
He had been asking himself this question for some time. However, he had finally found the answer by staring at his reflection in the mirror for five minutes. In fact, if at the height of his adolescence he had had a glimpse of where he was today and why, the boy - an ambitious model on the rise at the time - would have spared no effort to follow other paths that could take him far away from that particular part of his destiny.
He would have gone out of his way to avoid every single event that unleashed on that sunny afternoon, where the sudden sensations, until then unknown, began because of one person; he would have prevented his gaze from staring longer than usual at the beautiful young face, the long brown-haired figure he had been introduced to; he would have stood his ground instead of faltering completely when the smile of others came to him along with his name, which had hit him as hard as being thrown away by a car.
And, by God, he would surely hold back from indiscreetly running his orbs over the boy's defined and sweaty chest, who, minutes before his presence in the hall, had been training hard in front of the mirror, gracing his view with his delicate and synchronized steps along with the music.
It certainly would have been this way had it happened years ago, since the younger version of Kim Seokjin knew no one more centered and focused on his goals than himself. He spent his entire childhood being taught that giving up should not be in his vocabulary, much less accepting others to influence his bright and prosperous future. He came into the world to shine, and it was unacceptable that he would allow anyone to dare to dim his light.
"By whatever means, never let anyone have any power over you."
That was the phrase he heard most often from his mother, a well-regarded, divorced, un-motherly businesswoman. It permeated as an absolute truth around her for a long time, until she experienced and felt in her own skin that from the moment we had a real relationship with other people, it was impossible for them not to exercise some mere power over us. And, depending on the depth of each bond, depending on the after that came from each one, it could be exceptionally good or unforgettably bad.
He wished, and how he wished, that everything had remained simple and light with Jungkook.
He remembered perfectly, right after the formal introductions, how he smiled half embarrassed when he noticed her drying him off. He smiled back, silently apologizing for the slip, but showing no real regret. After all, that point couldn't be untrue. The dancer in the white tank top and shorts had captured her interest at first, and in the following encounters he had stolen her heart.
It was not something planned, much less expected. In his mind no one could shake him so much from the inside out. Never. And probably thinking this way was his greatest mistake (as well as his mother's, because she was the greatest implementer of such ideas), because when his construction about what love was and what happened to us when it knocked on our door was totally destroyed, he found himself terrified to realize where that unbridled desire had led him.
However, it was too late to run away; his fear of relationships made him postpone his greatest desire, which was to cross the line of kisses sneaked between one rehearsal and the next. But just like all his other reasons that made him resistant to the absurd initiative of trying a romance - his first since he was born - this one fell apart and had been very well buried. And with every minute with the one who was his new true love, he felt that it was the right thing to leave all his fears and doubts behind.
- So typical of the beginning of a relationship... - the blond sighed, feeling terribly nostalgic.
Although he had made his biggest dreams come true in the last few years, at the moment he was walking through the streets of a city he had longed to visit since childhood; his lost face that stared at the breathtaking landscapes around him without really seeing them showed how much he could not enjoy his stay one hundred percent.
Maybe it was because his current self, at twenty-eight, did not feel as full of life and expectations, nor was he as adventurous and lively as was always his nature, or did he tell silly, outdated jokes to hear the laughter of those around him. Nothing inside him was too uncomplicated to be solved by a trip as it used to be; all he had to do was choose a place on the globe and book a flight there, and the next day he would be intact. If not even the majestic beauty of Bruges could appease his suffering, what else could?
When he imagined his visit to that little pearl in the heart of Europe, he did not expect it to be due to requests from its average population to see a concert of his own. He was honored when the Municipal Theater Bruges contacted his company, practically begging for a special performance by the exquisite Korean talent. Jin prepared a classical performance as a thank you, rehearsing his songs in Orchestra version and excluding the choreographed dances, very much in the style of the capital and different from the others he had done before.
He was anxious and a little nervous because he had received information that the burgomaster would be in the box and would like to meet him at the end of the show, so he decided to go for a walk around Burg Square in the center of the city to clear his head and forget that he was a famous singer about to experience one of the most remarkable moments of his career. However, his plan failed miserably when he realized that almost six months ago, before starting the tour for his new mini album, he had invited his then ex-boyfriend to go with him, and had been rewarded with a huge smile followed by a joyful "yes" and kisses all over his face.
They worked out a schedule and the idol even managed to extend his days in the city so that they could visit her without rushing. However, the fight that resulted in their breakup occurred a week before they were to leave for their first country in Asia. I didn't even have to close my eyes to recreate the scene of both of them yelling at each other, attacking each other with hurtful words, tearing their chests out about how they felt about the suspicions that surrounded them and made them act like people they were not. Unfortunately, the conclusion they reached was that they no longer recognized each other and it was better to stop there rather than move on and turn the hurt that was already growing into something bigger that could destroy the good memories they had woven together.
The next day, Jeon Jungkook and his personal belongings no longer occupied space in his suite, but the same never happened with his thoughts and much less with his heart organ that beat strongly every time the memories of his dancer insisted on remaining impregnated in him like those expensive imported perfumes that we usually only pay for when we really like their smell and feel that we will never find anything like them. The baths we took were to no avail, because somehow that aroma remained stuck to us, not as strong as it was at first, but strong enough to remind us that it had been there.
Jin got up from the bench and started walking again, grateful for the wind with the delicious freshness of the flowers that came over him, tangling his bangs and messing up his thin scarf, making him smile a little. If Jeon had been there, perfectionist as he was, he would have made an effort to put everything back in order. The blond grumbled, scolding himself for thinking about him again. The point was that in that quiet, pleasant medieval city, it seemed inevitable not to think about the younger man. It was known as the "Venice of the North," a title that did justice to the romantic and fairy-tale magic of its entire construction, surrounded and crossed by canals.
As he walked up a cobblestone sidewalk, several couples hugging and holding hands passed smilingly by his side, leaving him with a sad and nostalgic smile on his face, characteristic of someone who has already experienced that and just wanted to have those precious moments back. He couldn't because he didn't know how to go back in time, nor did he have any hope of a return with his love in the future, but his imagination remained intact in the midst of so much pain, and it was by delving deeper into it that he was able to visualize flashes of his forty-eight month trajectory at his side.
He let the tears fall when the kiss on their first date came up. It wasn't as beautiful as couples in movies and soap operas usually are; there was a lot of awkwardness and nervousness to prevent it, but the much-mentioned butterflies fluttered inside him, and the euphoria of the moment made him let out a laugh that broke the awkward, soju-flavored contact. Jungkook stared at him funny and pressed their foreheads together when they could stop laughing, declaring softly that he had never wanted to be with someone so much.
Dirty tissues, trust issues
Glasses on the sink, they didn't fix you
Lonely pillows in a strangers bed
Little voices in my head
Secret keeping, stop the bleeding
Lost a little weight because I wasn't eating
All the souls that I can't listen to
To tell the truth
One of his favorite activities with his partner was playing the piano. He did not have the same skill with the instrument as the dancer, who learned to play at an early age, but he could play a few notes, and after a few lessons with him, he managed to improve his performance a lot. Except that, honestly, her favorite part was watching Jeon lose focus and start fumbling as he ran his nose down his neck and stroked his back until he gave up what he was doing to give him all the attention he wanted.
Loving you was young, and wild, and free
Loving you was cool, and hot, and sweet
Loving you was sunshine, safe and sound
A steady place to let down my defenses
But loving you had consequences
Once they were both alone in the training room, rehearsing the new choreography of the recently finished title song. Eventually they lost concentration, as always happened when their lips met. Upon returning to planet Earth, they noticed with amazement that their bodies naturally swayed from one side to the other in a dance that was calm and not at all in keeping with the rhythm that was playing, but totally in tune with the breathing that mingled due to the proximity of their faces and the surprisingly light beats of their hearts.
Seokjin understood in that second the difference between passion and love. He fell in love with Jungkook as soon as he saw him, but he came to love him only when he was allowed to know much more than every inch of his naked body. He came to love him also when he realized that he could be himself around him, without any makeup to cover his flaws as he had done so many times before in front of the media.
He uttered the three little words with all the conviction he could muster, staring deeply into the dancer's round irises that sparkled with his speech. He was promptly rewarded with an answer that warmed his soul and a hug that he would never have let go of if he had known how things would end.
Just like everything that is so strong that it becomes impossible to simply evaporate into thin air, the relationship wore out over time, when a trail of problems reached the couple and they could no longer deal with it together, becoming two strangers, trapped only by leftovers of what had once been the purest and most whole love they had ever felt. They tried so hard to work it out that it became another topic of the fights that always ended up leaving them days without speaking to each other.
The lack of communication took them to the dark side of loving someone; not being able to dialogue anymore; feeling everything as intense as ever for that person, but not wanting to keep fighting to build a bridge that would take you to that person and finally find peace. It was desperate to feel like staying and leaving at the same time.
To stay because he loved him, and to leave because he loved himself to understand that what they were living was no longer healthy.
Jungkook chose the second alternative, as did he.
So Jin went on to suffer the consequences of having loved him with all his being, without having any idea when they will stop reminding him of what he lost.
✢
The audience stared at him intently. From there he could see some crying faces, clearly moved by that song, in particular the one that had been written entirely for the one who, for so long had been his corner to rest after a busy week, and his joy after stress and anxiety crises.
Hesitation, awkward conversation
Running on low expectation
Every siren that I was ignoring
I'm paying for it
Such a part sounded so pitiful and painful straight from his bruised heart that he couldn't hold back an expression denouncing how intimate the song was to its performer, and how vulnerable it left him.
Loving you was young, and wild, and free
Loving you was cool, and hot, and sweet
Loving you was sunshine, safe and sound
A steady place to let down my defenses
But loving you had consequences
Kim closed his eyes, listened to the bowing of the violins, pressed the fingers of his right palm to the microphone, and took a deep breath. He knew what would happen, and he didn't want to postpone the inevitable. Consequences was made on a night when he felt suffocated with the reality of having to enter his room every day and find the space lacking the presence that invigorated him; of having to deal with the fact that he would no longer touch him or say something funny just to visualize his raised front teeth; of simply knowing that love, although more potent than any other feeling, was not enough to sustain a bond between two human beings.
They were too flawed and imperfect, so they needed a complementary list to accompany them for the rest of their lives. And no, this was not bad. The bad thing was having to feel the frustration of not being able to conquer these other items. It hurt like hell, and in most cases, it took years to recover from the shaking and the emptiness that insisted on dwelling inside you.
So Jin just let those questions come to him as if they were beginners. He had already learned that the first step on the way to overcoming was to allow himself to feel everything that thewhat the pain demanded. She was not going to pass just because he wanted it to. It was best to accept it, so that he could learn from it, and only then let it go.
Loving you was dumb, dark and cheap
Loving you still takes shots at me
For loving you was sunshine, but then it poured
And I lost so much more than my senses
'Cause loving you had consequences
He wondered if Jungkook felt that overwhelming longing too, that made his body tremble when sobs escaped his throat and gave him nightmares of some happy memory of the two of them being interrupted abruptly with that of him: saying goodbye and leaving without looking back.
He wondered if he had gotten another job, since when he separated from you, he not only moved back on his own, but also resigned from the company. He felt a little guilty when he found out, he hadn't meant for their relationship to compromise their professional life, but he couldn't deny that a small part of him was relieved, because working with him after the fact wouldn't have done them any good.
He wondered if he really did dye his untouchable dark brown hair, as he had mentioned he would after having doubted him.
He wondered if the pain in his back, from the heavier exercises given by the choreographer that he had been complaining about for weeks, had gone away. When he was brave enough to do something other than force himself to breathe and crawl to get a drink of water, he found his pain gel in a drawer that used to hold his underwear. He thought himself silly for having worried about it so much that he sent a message to warn him that he had forgotten the product that was the only one that could relieve him.
The message was not even received.
He wondered if he had auditioned for a trainee position; he hoped he had, and hoped that his efforts to convince him that he had the potential to pass had worked.
He wondered, with an irritating twinge pulsing inside his, if by any chance he had found someone else. That was none of his business, but he would like to know. Not to curse his new beginning, but to wish him happiness in his new endeavor.
Aah, loving you
And finally, in the last three seconds of the song, when he opened his eyelids and began to receive a fervent standing ovation from the audience, he wondered if the pink-haired person hurrying out the door had been there the whole show. He probably didn't notice her before because he was too absorbed in his presentation, but he didn't ignore her this time. It was curious, after all, Belgians were not in the habit of coloring their hair in such a showy way.