05

"You were my last love."

•••

I froze.

What?

I tried to process what was happening as I looked at him from behind my book. His face was buried in his hands and his elbows rested on his knees as he sat, hunched over on the edge of my bed.

"W-what?"

I stuttered in shock as he took deep breaths.

"I died before I could tell you how I was head over heels for you for two years. Your brother was devastated after hearing about my death."

"My little brother? Jaeyoung?"

Taehyung nodded with a bittersweet expression.

"We were like brothers. He was going through personal problems and I was going through family problems and some stuff at school too. My parents were abusive to each other, and to my sister and me. Kids at school were rude and obnoxious, spreading rumors about me and giving me crap about how I'd never be worth anything in life. Soon, living just became a nightmare, to the point where I felt better if I were dead. After putting up with it for three years, I just gave up. I told your brother the day before I killed myself that I'd take him to his favorite record shop downtown and he looked so excited, I felt my heart hurt in shame. I never thought he'd take the same path as me, but one day, I entered the ceremony for new kids and I found him. Your brother, he sat in the second chair of the front row with blank eyes and his head hung low.

He came up to me the next day and greeted me. I asked him why he did what he did and he told me, 'I just did what you did,

hyung.' 

"I was speechless. The fact that he knew my younger brother and the fact that he was a factor in my brother's suicide, I couldn't believe it."

I was so ashamed, I had just caused a kid that wasn't even in his high school years yet to kill himself! And you, your family, I saw everything. You blamed yourself for everything, you yelled at yourself for being such a horrible order sister, for not being able to stop him, for not even realizing he had problems. I owed you everything, and I wanted to fix everything for you, but I just couldn't.

When I heard you were being picked as a Liberator to save a kid, I begged them to have me assigned to you."

"You... Why.. How could you..?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for triggering your brother's suicide. I'm sorry he won't be able to know what high school is like, or what coffee tastes like. I'm sorry he'll never know what it's like to love, or be loved by another, or ever get married and have his own family. I'm sorry he'll never be able to have his first kiss, and ever see his family again. I'm soー"

"Stop. Stop it!"

I screamed at him. I threw my book down as the pages had been ruined by the fresh tears that cascaded down my cheek. He stared at me with pained eyes full of guilt as his Adam's apple bobbed, signaling he was swallowing back his tears.

"I'm sorry, Jimiー"

"Stop, don't say my name so casually. Get out."

My voice shook as I tried my best to firmly tell him to leave. He was only opening past wounds along with making new ones. His apologies felt like salt being

rubbed into open cuts and my heart ached as my chest heaved. My hands were balled in fists and my jaw was clenched tight. Taehyung didn't move, instead he looked at me and then back at the ground, hanging his head low.

"I said, get out! I don't ever want to see you again, so just get the hell out!"

The moment the fowl word left my mouth, Taehyung was gone. He'd suddenly vanished before my eyes. What was left of him was an amulet. It was a jagged crystal and its colors resembled Taehyung's golden and electric blue eyes. I tossed it aside on my desk next to the golden pocket watch that started all of this and ran down the hall of the house. I stopped in front of the very last door down at the end of the long hall.

Taking deep breaths, I entered the room I forbade myself from entering a year ago and immediately, I was indulged in the melancholic scent of my younger brother. I slammed the door shut and the next thing I knew, hell went down. I ripped apart the room, tearing through his closet and rummaging wildly through his drawers and shelves in hopes of finding hits of what he had hid from me. In his bottom right desk drawer, I found a bottle of pills along with an aluminum case sealed tightly with a Masterlock. After spending the next thirty minutes looking for the tiny key, I let out an ear-piercing scream of frustration and angst.

Tears still dripped from my eyes. They rolled down my chin and as they stained my clothes, I stared at what I had done to my little brother's room. Drawers had been pulled completely out from their slots and his closet was a large mess with clothes

scattered everywhere. His bed covers were on the floor and the lamp on his bedstand had been knocked over. Slowly, I forced myself off the floor and cleaned the room back to its state before my mental breakdown.

I heard a faint beep from the clock on his desk to see that it was already past midnight. I found myself to be wide awake even after the exhausting events that had happened today. I hovered over my brother's bookshelf to see an array of books that he loved and read over and over again.

He was the type of little brother that had rarely anything in common with you, but you still loved dotingly. He was the type to read his favorite books again and again until he knew how each chapter started. He was the type that preferred to listen to older music than the current, popular music. He loved drawing and you could easily tell that he did as he sketched all over his belongings such as his notebooks, erasers, school workbooks and worksheets, along with a bunch of his books. He used to get scolded by our parents for drawing on his own skin.

I smiled and softly laughed at the memories of my brother and pulled out his favorite book of all time. The cover was slightly ripping as the pages looked worn out, folded by the corners. Sticky-notes and small pieces of paper were suck in between pages with his comments and thoughts or even just a doodle he had sketched of the scene in the book. I paged through his silly notes and doodles until I came across a large hole in the middle of the book. The edges of the hole were jagged and looked like it was cut in a rough, rushed manner. In the middle

laid a sharp, shiny, metal object.

I took in a sharp breath of air as I immediately picked it up and dropped the book on the ground in a hurry. I rushed to the aluminum case I had set on his bed and with shaking hands, I slowly turned the key. To my relief, I heard the small click of the lock opening.

I tossed the lock onto the ground and open the case to see a stack of albums along with a bundle of notes and pictures. The covers of the albums were faded as I examined each of them closely, looking for even the slightest hints. They were his favorite albums, two of them being the ones I had gifted to him the Christmas before his death. In the corner of each of them, he wrote who they were from. In the corners of three of them, my brother's messy scrawl read, 'From V hyung.'

The notes were either small doodles or actual notes written to different people, mostly Taehyung and me. The pictures showed him and me doing ridiculous things together along with other photos of our family vacations. Some of the pictures had Taehyung in them with him, both with bright smiles on their faces. It was a smile I had never seen on Taehyung. He looked happier then than now.

The backs of the pictures had little notes written by my brother about what was happening in each of them. It took me a minute until I realized this was a time capsule he and Taehyung had made together. A piece of paper stuck to the lid of the case. I opened it up to see that it was a letter addressed to Taehyung.

Dear V hyung, 

It's been a week since your death and I came across the time capsule we made together. You told me we would burry it together by the tree in my backyard, but I guess things weren't working out as well as we both hoped they would as you are gone now and I am here, alone again. I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you and I'm sorry I wasn't able to save you from all the suffering the world gave you. I hope that you're in a better place now, a place where you can live happily without experiencing what you had to in this world. I'm sorry you never got to tell Jimin noona how you were absolutely head over heels for her. I'm sure she would have returned your feelings because she would have been crazy not to, hyung.

I went to the record shop alone the day you died and I bought your favorite album and it lies in this case now in memory of you. I was going to gift it to you, but it was too late as you were dead by the time I had bought it. I hope that we can meet again in a better place and I hope that if we're ever reborn, we'd be reborn as real brothers. Again, I hope you're happy up in heaven, and I'll see you soon, hyung.

ー Jung Jaeyoung