Chapter Text
“All I could do was love you hard and let you go.”
“Go and ride the sun away.”
I called Chan and Seungcheol to help me get the rest of my stuff.
I know you wanted to go see another counselor… but I don’t know what the point would be. I know I’m not the only one who’s hurting here, and I don’t see what the hell else we can do.I don’t think you could see how deep the cracks run, or that I had run out of rope.
We could keep fighting each other, keep hurting each other, but I think it’s time to just face it…
I couldn’t be what you wanted.
All I could do was love you – and god did I love you – love you hard and let you go.-Jihoon
The weighty cream piece of paper lay on the coffee table and on top of it, Jihoon’s silver wedding band, identical to the one on your own finger. The lights are off, but the room is far from dark. The sun outside is at its zenith and its rays spill into the room and wash the air with enough light to see dust floating in the air. Aside from the note and silver band, glimmering in the light, nothing in the living room had been touched in weeks.
I should be crying , you think to yourself. But you don’t. You haven’t cried in a while, really, because honestly, to say you didn’t see this coming would be a lie.
From the minute you met him five years ago, sitting at a table on the fourth floor of the library and madly scribbling into a worn leather notebook, you knew he was on a one way road to something bigger. You suppose it was only a matter of time that he would outgrow you too.
While nearly every other seat was occupied by students with strewn out textbooks, notebooks, and half-dead laptops cramming for midterms, he was writing a song. School was on the backburner for him (as were most other things), a backup plan in case his dreams were just a little bit too far. Interestingly enough, that was what drew you to him.
“Whatcha writing?” you had asked him, the nervous crack in your voice betraying your casual attempt at conversation. You had noticed him as soon as you sat down to study an hour ago, as he was one of the only people around without a laptop in front of him, but waited until your break to finally let your curiosity get to you.
It took a few seconds before he realized you were speaking to him and he finally lifted his head to look at you. You couldn’t help but smile as you realized the redness on his cheek from resting it on his fist and the messy state of his dark hair.
“Me?” he questioned as you nodded.
“There’s no one else at the table,” you teased.
“Oh,” he looked around as if he hadn’t given any attention to his surroundings in a while. “I’m working on a song,” he admitted softly.
“Cool,” you replied. “Is it for a class? My friend is in a songwriting class with profe–”
“No,” he interrupted, scribbling something else down before returning his attention to you. “It’s just for fun.”
“Fun, huh?” you began. “You have time for fun in the middle of midterms?”
He let out a chuckle as he shook his head. “I like to think I have my priorities sorted,” he answered. “I’m Jihoon.” He extended his hand out for you to shake.
You looked down at his hand, noting the calluses on his fingertips before taking it in yours and introducing yourself.
“So what about you?” he returned. “What class are you studying for?”
You turned your laptop around to show him the powerpoint you had pulled up from your music and neuroscience class. “I’m actually in a class about how music affects the brain,” you explained.
Jihoon’s face lit up in interest. “Really?” he asked. “How does it affect the brain then?” It had been a while since you were able to gush about your interest in neuroscience.
“Well,” you began, pointing your finger over the brain scans on the slide. “There’s some recent studies showing that music could help treat people with Alzheimer’s and some other neurological issues in elderly people.”
You looked over to Jihoon’s brows furrowed in interest as he nodded along. “That’s pretty cool,” he mused.
“Yeah,” you continued. “I saw a couple of videos that show patients with forms of dementia suddenly remembering complex ballet dances and specific memories just from certain musical cues with synaptic activity in many voxels that–” you cut yourself off, realizing you were going to start rambling.
“That what?” Jihoon looked back up at you, clearly still interested in what you had to say.
“That uh,” you blinked at him. “This isn’t boring you?”
“Huh?” he questioned. “This is really cool,” he laughed. “As a musician, it’s nice to know music is more than just something pretty to listen to. I could be making synapses move and what not. I’ll be making an impact.”
You laughed and nodded your head. “Well, synapses don’t move,” you corrected as Jihoon rolled his eyes before giving you a smile. “But thanks.”
“For what?”
“For listening.”
It’s easy, even now, five years later, to remember the way he looked bathed in spring sunlight and the feeling of his callused hands in yours even if you couldn’t remember the last time he actually touched you. He used to trace circles against your skin, humming melodies into your ear, a soft reminder every time of the day you met.
You look down now at your hand and pull off the band, setting it down next to Jihoon’s rather than picking them both up. They’re small, but something tells you they’d be heavy like lead in your palms. So instead, you opt to leave them there, to join the rest of the abandoned and untouched reminders of a life once shared.
On another day you’d take down the pictures of Jihoon kissing your cheek at the fair, the plaque you jokingly made for him out of macaroni after his first single first charted, and the blanket he bought you from Germany on his first tour. Those would wait till another day when you can begin to move forward the way Jihoon has. But today, you choose to return to your room, to hold onto some semblance of familiarity, still hurting.