Eros: The Obsession

Chapter One

Jun wakes up to a shrill ringing. He groans, scrubbing a palm over his face as he searches for his phone with his other hand. The ringing reverberates in his ears and he bemoans breaking open the old bottle of tequila that had been lying in the back of his grocery cupboard.

Still, he muses, even his hangover is better than staying sober to listen to whatever had gone on last night.

He finally finds his phone, tapping at the screen with a furrowed brow as he blinks up at the bright screen. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light and even just opening his eyes sends a stab of pain through his head. When they finally decide to co-operate, his eyes flit to the time and he cusses before bolting out of the bed. He stumbles into the shower, scrubbing himself off of last night's pity party and lathering a decent amount of soap onto his body. When he's sufficiently clean, he rushes out the shower and towels himself dry before getting into a pair of clean sweatpants. He throws on a white t-shirt for good measure before looking himself over in the mirror.

His hair is a mess, falling across his neck in dark, curly waves. He grumbles to himself as he grabs a hair-tie, tying the mess of locks into a messy bun. It makes him look a little more presentable but there are still a few strands of stubborn locks that refuse to obey. They fall across his forehead and into his eyes. Jun huffs but decides he doesn't have enough time to fight with his hair, so he grabs his favorite can of deodorant - the one he knows she likes - and begins to spray himself down; not too much that she'll be put off, but enough that she'll be able to smell it. Once he's satisfied with how he looks, he pads over to his kitchen. The trash bag sits near the door, waiting for him. He takes it with one hand while opening his door with the other.

They step out at the same time.

She doesn't notice him at first, still half-asleep like she usually is at this time of the day. He watches her from the side of his eye, taking in the messy head of hair, the giant shirt she seems to be drowning in, the pajama pants peeking out from beneath. His heart lurches painfully, stomach clenching with such an overwhelming longing that it leaves him a little breathless. It only gets worse when she turns to him.

"Oh!" she gives a startled little gasp, eyes widening in shock. "Jun! Hi, I didn't see you there."

"Morning, Tara," he greets in a groggy voice. He tries to swallow around the little ball of emotion that sits in the back of his throat.

"Taking the trash down?" she asks, nodding to the black bag in his hands, identical to the one in hers.

He hums noncommittally, reaching his hand out towards her. "May I?"

She smiles, a small shy pull of her lips, as she hands her bag over to him. "Thank you."

She lets him walk down the corridor first before falling in line with him, her pink bunny slippers dragging as she walks.

"How was your week?" Tara asks, as she always does.

Jun shrugs. "Not very eventful. And yours?"

"A little stressful," she sighs. "We go to print tomorrow so everyone's been running around like headless chickens trying to get the finishing touches done."

"When does this month's issue come out?" he asks like he doesn't already know the answer.

"Next Friday," she says, "But you really don't have to get a copy every month." She ducks her head in embarrassment.

"I like your articles," Jun replies a little too truthfully. He has a folder of them in his apartment.

"Really?" Tara asks, her nose scrunching as she giggles. "But they're for kids."

"Who says adults can't read about '10 strange animal facts'?" he quotes, chest swelling with pride when she smiles bashfully.

They continue to make small-talk as they head to the entrance of their building  complex, where an assortment of trash bags already waits. He drops both of theirs onto the pile and dusts his hands.

"Thank you," Tara says like she does every Friday he does this - like he wouldn't walk down ten flights of stairs every day just for the brief period of time she gives him any attention.

"My pleasure," Jun replies with a warm smile of his own, and even he can feel the fondness of his stare. He nods his head in the direction of their building, motioning for her to walk in front of him. He sees it as she turns.

A light red bruise on the back of her neck, small enough that he could wrap his lips around.

Jun stiffens but Tara doesn't notice. He clenches his fists, trying not to sound too angry when he asks, "Did Ren stay over last night?"

Tara nods absentmindedly and then turns to him with a sheepish grin, "I hope we weren't too loud. He gets vocal when we play videogames."

Jun gives her a tight smile, "No, you weren't," he tells her even though he could hear everything - right up until the moment he'd decided to deep-throat the tequila bottle to drown out the muffled moaning he could hear from the other side of the wall. A pang of envy curls in his chest when he realizes that the shirt she's wearing probably belongs to Ren.

The revelation leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He's less vocal as they walk back up to their floor but Tara doesn't seem to notice, prattling on about some get-together she's going to have.

"Please come yell at us if we're being too loud," she chuckles.

Jun nods his head in acquiescence but knows he won't even if they are. He enjoys hearing her speak, even if it's to other people. The array of things he's learnt about her have come from pressing his ear to the wall they share.

"I'll see you around, Jun," she smiles, honey-sweet like spending time with Jun is her favorite thing in the world. He's noticed that she looks at everyone like that, so open to sharing her joy with the rest of the world that it becomes a formless void, sucking everyone into her little bubble of attention only to have the spell broken when she looks at someone she really cares about. Like Ren.

As she pulls open the door, Jun eyes the man leaning against the wall, half-asleep with his face pressed into the thin wood. A trickle of drool stains the area around his mouth and despite looking like he'd gone to war with an army of badgers, Tara's smile is blinding in its fondness.

There's a genuine curl of her lips, an unadulterated softening of her gaze, that she reserves for the man standing in front of her. The man Jun wishes he could strangle in his sleep.

Even with all of her attention focused on the mess of a man in the hallway, she turns to Jun with one more goodbye, always polite and kind.

He nods with a smile, watching as she shuts the door. He can hear them through the wood, murmured 'good mornings' shared between the two before the sounds of rustling fill his ears. Jun thinks he may have heard a moan or two but he doesn't stay to confirm his suspicions.   

He sighs to himself as he turns to his own apartment door, pushing it open forlornly as he steps inside. He makes himself a cup of  coffee, trying to while away the time as he waits.

When he hears Tara's door open, he pushes himself off of the counter, dropping the rest of his coffee into the sink. Muffled voices come from outside, one a deep baritone and the other Tara's smooth lilt. Jun hears her say goodbye before a pair of heels clack against the corridor tiles. He waits another five minutes for the sounds to grow distant, before he picks up his camera and keys. He makes his way down the stairs and to the entrance of the building, turning right and spotting the messy bounce of Tara's black hair down the road.

He follows at a safe distance, farther enough that she won't suspect that she's being followed and close enough that he can intervene should anything happen. Nothing has happened, but they live in one of the poorer neighborhoods and he doesn't want to risk her getting herself hurt without him there to protect her.

So he follows her - just to make sure no one else does.

Sometimes, he'll allow himself a picture or two, just to sate himself when she looks particularly pretty -like she does now. In a pretty floral dress and white turtleneck, she looks dainty, fragile. She's always looked particularly breakable but Jun thinks she looks even more so in dresses like the one she's wearing. It makes her look like a fairy and a part of him wishes that she were small enough to fit inside his pocket so he could keep her safe, keep her with him.

He plays around with the idea for a bit, enjoying the idea of her sitting atop his head or his shoulder, entirely dependent on him. The camera in his hand rises almost subconsciously, and before he knows it, he's filling his new memory stick with snapshots of her.

She doesn't catch him - she never does - and he follows her all the way to her publications building, watching her walk up the steps and through the revolving doors. He waits a moment more before turning and making his way across town to his own job.

He gets there an hour after he's supposed to clock in, and he knows the manager is going to give him an earful for being late yet again, but he can't bring himself to feel guilt about it. Not when he goes through the trove of pictures he has of Tara, a set of new additions for his collection. 

That night, Jun listens as people make their way into Tara's apartment. Three in all - Lillian, Jin and Ren. Jun has never met them personally, but he knows that Lillian is the blonde nurse who thinks he's a creep, Jin is the overly loud one who manages his own coffee shop and advocates for animal rights, and Ren is sleeping with the woman he loves.

They're Tara's closest friends and he's found out a ton of interesting things about the woman by listening in on some of her conversations with them. 

Like now.

Lillian and Tara are in the room that shares a wall with Jun's lounge - Tara's bedroom.

"How's work?" Lillian asks in a casual tone.

"Not too bad, just a little stressful."

"Are you still doing field articles?"

"Sometimes," Tara replies. "Most of the time I'm stuck on the features slot. I've asked my editor for more hard news pieces but she doesn't trust that I can handle them just yet."

"After what happened last time?"

"Yeah," Tara sighs and that piques Jun's interest. He's never heard Tara express any desire to tackle the more hard-hitting pieces her publication is known for and the new bit of information makes him lean against the wall, his breath coming slower so that he doesn't miss anything.

"You know it's not your fault, right?" Lillian reassures the other woman. Jun's blood rushes passed his ears, heart beating erratically at the words. What wasn't her fault?

"I know," Tara says. "But it's just taken a while to...readjust..."

"You're not going to recover from something like that instantly," Lillian adds. "It'll take some time."

Something like what, Jun muses.

"I know that," Tara huffs out a reply, and Jun hears shuffling from the other side of the wall. "Can we not talk about this right now?" Tara adds and her voice sounds so shaken and hurt that Jun feels a rush of protectiveness overcome him, burrowing through his chest and causing his fingers to curl into his palms.

A moment passes where he hears them walk away, to their planned dinner no doubt. Jun sits there leaning with his head against the wall. It takes a while for him to realize that his nails have pierced through his palms and when he does, he gingerly uncurls them, allowing the blood to run over his fingers for a moment.

He watches the deep red with a faraway look in his eyes, head tilted to the side. It's not often that something Tara says throws him off - he prides himself on knowing everything about the woman - so this new bit of information, this mystery eats away at his mind. He wants, no needs, to know what she's talking about. He needs to know what's distressed his love so much that she'd so harshly dismiss her friend like that.

With renewed vigor, he devices a plan to find out.

When things are set in motion, he rewards himself by scrolling through Tara's social media pages. A lot of her posts are snapshots of landscapes or animals, some of her friends and family, but barely any of the woman herself. It had been the reason Jun had taken to photographing her in the first place.

Her captions are simple, sometimes an emoticon and sometimes just a blank space. He loves trying to decipher what the woman had been thinking, feeling, when she'd posted each image.

He stops scrolling at a recent photograph of her Japan trip, the image capturing a small temple entrance with a dilapidated roof and chipped wood. The temple itself is nothing of import, one of the thousands littered about the country, but the way she captures it - cocooned by in-bloom cherry blossom trees with the sunset resting behind it - makes it look breathtaking. She has an eye for seeing beauty in the broken, in the insignificant - like Jun.

A swell of emotion gets caught in his throat as he continues to stare at the image and before he registers it, a stream of hot tears begin to streak down his face. For a moment, he doesn't do anything, he just continues to stare at the photograph, a strange sort of comfort encompassing him while doing so. When he wipes at his face, he imagines that it's her dainty fingers, her gentle warmth that caresses his cheeks. His hands are nothing like hers - calloused and skinny where hers are soft and full - but just the image of her touching him in anything that isn't apathy makes his chest clench with such a strong yearning that he hunches in on himself.

He gets lost in his fantasy, imagines that she pulls him up off the floor, dries his face and laughs good-naturedly at his emotional reaction. He imagines that she wraps him in a gentle hug, that she places delicate kisses atop his face as she reassures him of her love - of her devotion.

He gets so lost in his fantasy, that he almost misses a notification.

His phone blinks to life, drawing his attention to the bright screen as it flashes with an i********: notification. Tara has posted. It's late, already passed midnight and he'd long since expected her to be asleep, knowing what an early riser she is. Still, he slides his phone open and clicks onto the app with a curious pull of his brows.

She's posted a few images. The first is a snapshot of her and Ren, curled up together in a tight embrace. It sends a familiar pang straight through his heart but Jun continues to scroll to the next image. This one is a photograph of Tara's hands - smooth and well taken care of. There's a giant diamond ring on her ring finger. It's extravagant and gaudy, nothing like Jun thinks Tara would wear. The caption beneath the post reads 'I said yes!'.

It takes a while for Jun to take in the information, and longer for it to make sense in his head. His fingers grip around the screen so tightly that he fears it might break. Her words keep replaying in his head.

I said yes.

I said yes.

Yes to what?

Nothing makes sense to him, his brain refusing to make the connection between the images and the caption even as his heart feels like it's caving in on itself, being crushed in by a delicate hand decorated by a diamond ring.

I said yes.

Jun begins to hyperventilate. He feels his throat close up, his breath coming in short gasps. Tears stream down his face and he feels nothing and too much at the same time. He wants to scream, to yell, to curse, to let something out but his body won't co-operate. It remains rooted to the floor, limbs stiff and face wet.

He hiccups pitifully, forcing his hands to his face to scrub at his eyes. The phone tumbles to the floor, screen going mercifully black but the image is still ingrained into his mind, the captions still run through his ears so crisp and clear that he almost imagines Tara saying them.

I said yes.

She said yes. She's getting married.

Jun stumbles to his feet, crashing into his coffee table in his haste. He doesn't feel the sting of it, overshadowed by the consuming devastation that clutches at his heart.

Rushing out his apartment, Jun lets his feet carry him wherever as his anger continues to boil over. His mind keeps replaying her words - over and over - a litany of 'I said yes's destroying his world around him. She's getting married. She'll never want him.

He grits his teeth, jaw aching as much as his palms as his nails dig into the fat there. He can feel his fingers start to slip with the blood that begins to bead from the welts but his mind can't focus on anything other than the image of her ring-clad finger.

He's so angry that he doesn't see the flyer until it smacks him in the face. Sputtering in anger, Jun wrenches the paper away and is about to squash the offending piece of trash when a phrase catches his eye. 'Love trouble?'.

Jun narrows his eyes as he spreads the sheet out, blood smearing across the edges. 'Are you having love trouble?' the main headline reads. 'Let Madam Rosmerta solve it for you'.

Be with the one you love - guaranteed. Bring something that reminds you of your beloved and a price you think love is worth.

It sounds like an obvious scam. Shoddily thrown together on what looks like a word document with a garish type-font that reminds Jun of a thirteen-year-old's rendition of what black magicians like, he immediately dismisses it. But instead of throwing it away, he shoves it into his back pocket before walking back to his apartment.

His mind keeps drifting back to the words 'love trouble' even as he hears Tara moan later that night, loud and unabashed like she doesn't care that she's shoving a knife into his heart with every sound.

When he wakes up the next day, he grabs the brush that he stole from her apartment weeks ago - her hair still tangled around the bristles - and makes his way to the trailer park address sprawled across the bottom of the flyer.