The Meaning of Being Lonely: FINAL CHAPTER
The fourth time he has sex, Changmin’s roommate was gone for the weekend. He’s up late, working on an essay that’s due in nine hours, wondering how he let himself get so behind. He knew the answer, though, as he paused in the middle of a sentence.
His attention wandered back to the first day of middle school. The memory was one he’d always wanted to forget, but now he embraced it, and it felt like a warm blanket around his shoulders. All the kids running across the classroom, passing notes, speaking Korean. He’d never become good at speaking English, even when he was amongst it so often at college. He often called friends back home just to have an excuse to speak it. All except one.
Changmin sighed, heavily. He was never going to get this paper done if he didn’t focus. He sat forward in his chair, and placed his fingers on the foreign keyboard. Tap tap tap. Backspace. Tap tap…tap… Backspace. TAP TAP TAP TAP. BACKSPACE.
Changmin grunted in frustration, and pushed himself away from the desk. This was driving him crazy. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jaejoong, and how they never talked after what happened. They just went their separate ways after graduation. He couldn’t even remember seeing him at the ceremony. He probably skipped it. It’s not like his parents cared too much about it.
He suddenly remembered the night he’d walked in on Jaejoong and HyunJoong. The pain that had squeezed his heart, when he saw HyunJoong’s fingers already beneath Jaejoong’s pantsline, his other hand in his hair, their lips both equally red from abuse. It made him ache to think about it even now. And he knew that’s how Jaejoong must have felt. The pain. The betrayal. The heartache.
Changmin didn’t even try to reconcile with him. It made leaving easier somehow.
Until now, of course.
Changmin sighed again, and rubbed his face with his hands. He got up, straightening out his eyebrows [which he was sure were mussed after that] and walked across the room to get his coat.
Maybe a drink would solve the problem…for tonight.
As he checked his face in the mirror, he heard a loud commotion out in the hall. He shrugged it off. It was probably the twins again. They were the loudest guys on the hall, which Changmin found ironic, because Koreans were usually pretty reserved. Or, maybe he was just thinking about himself. Changmin sighed, and shrugged this off as well, walking to the door with his coat in hand.
Changmin opened the door, and was about to step out, when a newspaper was shoved into his face.
“HyunJoong was finally convicted of sexual harassment on ten occasions,” a voice said. Changmin shoved the paper out of his face, briefly noting that it was written in korean, and looked at the person who’d intruded on his personal space.
“I testified against him. They couldn’t prove your case, though, because all they had was my word.”
Changmin simply stared at the emaciated man standing before him. After a whole year of silence.
“Jaejoong-ah…”
“Look, I know this wasn’t a very good idea. Me coming here without telling you. Because you probably don’t want to see me. But, I thought you might want to know about HyunJoong…after what he did to you,” he said, cutting Changmin off. His words rushed out all in one breath, as if he’d practiced the lines hundreds of times, and was determined to say them before Changmin could say anything.
Knowing Jaejoong, that’s probably exactly what he did.
“Jaejoong,…”
“He confessed to me, Changmin, out of pride. He told me that he’d orchestrated that whole event just to…hurt me for turning him down. Because, you see, earlier in the year, he hit on me again, and I literally told him to fuck off and never touch me again, or I would report him. He told me he chose you because he knew you wouldn’t rat on him, and I…” here he paused, a smiled a little, “Well, I punched him in the face. But, after he told me all of that, I reported him, and his case ended up going to court, because there were so many victims…”
Jaejoong stopped talking, slightly out of breath, and simply stared at Changmin with a doe-eyed look. Changmin saw that his cheeks had thinned out, and his shoulders were bonier than he remembered. He looked down, and saw that his belt had extra loops cut out of them, probably by Jaejoong himself. He always did wear the smallest belt he could get…because his waist was so tiny. His shirt, which Changmin noted was one of his old ones that he’d accidentally left at his house, hung around him like a tent. It made Changmin wonder.
“When was he convicted,” Changmin asked, taking the paper from Jaejoong’s hands, and walking back to his desk. He sat down in his chair and only half-heartedly scanned the article, complete with a mug shot. He decided it was a good look for HyunJoong.
“Uh…he was sentenced to jail for fifteen years, with the possibility of parole in ten,” Jaejoong answered, still standing at the door. Changmin looked up at him and noticed he was shivering.
“Well, come in. Take a blanket. You look like you’re going to freeze,” Changmin said, motioning to the bed opposite him.
Jaejoong clacked his shoes together. “Are you sure,” he asked, voice hesitant. Changmin licked his lips and set down the newspaper on his desk.
“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure, Jae,” he replied.
“Right,” Jaejoong said to himself, then walked in. Halfway to the bed, he turned around and closed the door, then came back. Changmin watched as he peeled a blanket off the end of the bed and loosely wrapped it around his shoulders. It really pained him to see Jaejoong so…weak. Is this what they’d done to each other?
Jaejoong cleared his throat. “You look well,” he offered.
“You look like shit,” Changmin replied. Jaejoong gave a dry chuckle.
“I devoted a lot of time to the case,” he explained.
Another silence fell, and Jaejoong took to looking around his dorm. His eyes lingered on the pictures of his roommate’s girlfriend, and noted everything from the sink and toothbrushes, to the rug on the floor. Changmin simply watched him, to see if any part of the old Jaejoong was buried somewhere deep within the hollow shell he saw now. He thought he might have recognized the quirk of his neck when he turned it. Or, maybe the way his fingers wrapped around the blanket, small and even more delicate than they used to be. They looked sinewy now. He thought he might have seen a glimpse when he tucked his knees close to his chest and rested his chin on them, eyes slowly coming full circle to look at him again.
“Where’s your roommate,” he asked, pointing to the other bed, and the pictures on the wall.
“He went home for the weekend. He lives an hour away,” he explained. Jaejoong made a small ‘o’ with his mouth, and a hoarse sound issued forth. It was an echo of the laugh Changmin had loved so much.
“Who, uhm,…who else testified against HyunJoong,” Changmin asked, trying to get Jaejoong to liven up. He hated seeing him so dead.
“Oh, loads of girls, and like, one other guy. Most of them were in our class,” he said, piping up, “Let’s see, there was Tiffany,…”
“Noooo, not Tiffany!”
“Mmhmm. And there was JanDi, and HyanGo…she was hurt twice. And…do you remember Ri-In?”
“Yes! Oh my goodness, innocent little Ri-In?”
“Yeah. She broke out in tears on the stand. And a girl who graduated before we got there…I don’t remember her name. Jung Yunho’s little sister…”
“Her? Aw, I’ll bet Yunho was furious.”
“Yeah, he was. Another girl, who was friends with the girl who graduated before us, and the other guy…I thik his name was…TaeMin. And of course, there was me,” Jaejoong finished, taking a deep breath, and then sighing.
“Wow,” Changmin breathed, “He really hurt a lot of people.”
“Mmhmm. And the thing that really bothered me was he wasn’t even sorry. He just sat there with a smug smile on his face the whole time. Until the jury read his sentence. Then he went crazy. He started yelling and raving nonesense. It was the weirdest thing I think I’ve ever seen.”
Changmin nodded and hummed. Another silence fell over them, and Changmin idly tugged at the fraying rip in his pants leg. He knew why Jaejoong had really come…and it wasn’t just to tell him about HyunJoong. He knew they both still felt the same way… Hell, Jaejoong had flown all the way to America. That was pretty much confirmation.
“You know,” he said, still inspecting the rip in his jeans, “I still want you. HyunJoong never changed that.”
He looked over at Jaejoong, who’d lifted his head off his knees, disbelieving what he’d heard.
“But what about this,” he asked, rolling his eyes around the dorm, “Don’t you want this?” He knew Jae was referring to the ‘great resume’ he’d talked about that afternoon when he’d broke the news to him.
“It’s not what I expected it to be,” Changmin said, “I’ve been miserable here. The only thing that remotely reminds me of back home are the twins that share a dorm down the hall.”
“I met them on my way in, actually. They seem like a nice pair,” Jaejoong added, but immediately bit his lip when he realized he’d interrupted. “Sorry.”
“It’s just not the same, Jae,” he said, getting up out of his chair and walking over to him. “I…I think I need to come home, is what I’m saying…and…”
“You want me to be waiting when you get there,” Jaejoong finished, trying not to divulge his pleased smile.
“More than that,” Changmin said, sitting down next to him. Jaejoong let his legs slide down. “I…want to love you again. I mean, I’ve tried to be with other guys…and even some girls…but it’s just not the same. I didn’t even really get past the first date with any of them. I always bailed out with some lame excuse.”
Jaejoong reached out from beneath the blanket and grasped Changmin’s hand. “I know,” he said, “I busied myself with this case, trying to forget you, but all the while working for you…and, it never really helped.”
“I can tell,” Changmin said, motioning towards his body, “You look like you starved yourself.”
“Pretty darn close,” Jae replied. “I just wanted to…forgive myself, I guess, because you wanted to do something with your life, and I was content to stay where I was…with you. I was being selfish.”
Changmin leaned closer to Jaejoong, and lightly pecked him on the lips. “You can be selfish about me all you want.”
Jaejoong smiled a little, then leaned in and kissed Changmin again. Deeper. Almost like he’d waited a year for this…which they kindof did. Changmin unwrapped Jaejoong from his blanket, and moved forward, so he would lay down on the bed. Carefully, so he wouldn’t break him, Changmin layed on top of him, and slowly ran his fingers through his hair. Jaejoong explored Changmin’s mouth carefully and slowly, relishing him like he would be gone tomorrow, and Changmin smiled a little bit.
“I missed you so much, Changmin,” Jae said through entertwined tongues.
“I missed you, too,” he said, pulling back so he could remove his shirt. Jae sat up a little, and did the same, revealing his gaunt ribcage. Every rib was showing.
“Oh my god, Jaejoong,” Changmin said, running his hands over his chest, “Look what you did.”
“You’re going to have to feed me up,” Jaejoong said, smiling a little. Changmin laughed, and reached to unbutton Jaejoong’s pants. He slid them off his thin frame, throwing them across the room, then did the same with his own. Jaejoong chuckled when Changmin began kissing his exposed ribs.
“You really weren’t kidding when you said wearing underwear wasn’t your style!”
“I just wanted to make it easy for you,” Changmin said, smiling against his chest.
He moved back up to Jaejoong, and caught his lips again, gently at first, then roughly. God, he’d missed him so much. He brought Jaejoong’s legs up around his hips, and Jaejoong clung to him. He guided his erection to his unprepared hole and slipped in slowly, watching Jaejoong as he clenched his teeth and started breathing faster.
“Ah…Changmin…ah-ah.”
Changmin kissed Jaejoong, distracting him, sliding his tongue over his, sucking on his lip, moving to his ear. He moved back to his lips, and Jaejoong grabbed his head, keeping him in place, and hungrily devouring him. It was like they’d never kissed before.
Changmin began to move, slowly, in and out, hoping he wasn’t hurting Jae too much. He looked like he couldn’t take a round like he could a year ago. Jaejoong surprised him, however, by pushing into him, letting his hands slide down to his hips to push him in harder. Changmin started going faster, deeper, moaning when Jaejoong tensed his muscles around him. He was still tight, just like back then.
“Ugh, Changmin!...Go faster,” Jaejoong begged. Changmin obeyed, and braced his feet against the bed frame. Jaejoong’s hand left his thigh and began stroking himself in time with Changmin.
“Oh…ah…Changmin…I’m so close,” he yelled. Changmin thrusted faster, finally coming into Jaejoong with a loud cry. Jaejoong came in his own hand one moment later, his hips shuddering around Changmin. He slowly slipped out of Jaejoong, and layed back down on the bed. Jaejoong unwrapped himself, panting as he turned over to lay on Changmin’s heaving chest. He pressed his frail body as close to Changmin’s side as he could.
Still panting, drawing circles around his nipple, Jaejoong looked up at Changmin. “I love you, you know,” he said.
Changmin brushed the hair out of Jaejoong’s eyes, and let his hand fall down his back.
“I love you, too, Jae.” He smiled, and put his head back on Changmin’s chest, allowing his breathing time to even out before he spoke again.
“You know…,” he began. Changmin detected a playful tone to his voice. “You didn’t come three times…you only came once.”
Changmin laughed outright. “Do you think you could fix that then,” he asked. When Jaejoong looked up at him, his eyes shone and sparkled, and even though his wide smile made him look more emaciated, Changmin thought he saw more of the old Jaejoong in that moment than from the time he walked in the door.
“Can I fix that,” he mocked, rolling on top of Changmin, “I’ll make you wish you hadn’t already come once.”
“Because, even if running doesn’t get us anywhere,
At least we found something greater in the midst of the chase.”
His attention wandered back to the first day of middle school. The memory was one he’d always wanted to forget, but now he embraced it, and it felt like a warm blanket around his shoulders. All the kids running across the classroom, passing notes, speaking Korean. He’d never become good at speaking English, even when he was amongst it so often at college. He often called friends back home just to have an excuse to speak it. All except one.
Changmin sighed, heavily. He was never going to get this paper done if he didn’t focus. He sat forward in his chair, and placed his fingers on the foreign keyboard. Tap tap tap. Backspace. Tap tap…tap… Backspace. TAP TAP TAP TAP. BACKSPACE.
Changmin grunted in frustration, and pushed himself away from the desk. This was driving him crazy. He couldn’t stop thinking about Jaejoong, and how they never talked after what happened. They just went their separate ways after graduation. He couldn’t even remember seeing him at the ceremony. He probably skipped it. It’s not like his parents cared too much about it.
He suddenly remembered the night he’d walked in on Jaejoong and HyunJoong. The pain that had squeezed his heart, when he saw HyunJoong’s fingers already beneath Jaejoong’s pantsline, his other hand in his hair, their lips both equally red from abuse. It made him ache to think about it even now. And he knew that’s how Jaejoong must have felt. The pain. The betrayal. The heartache.
Changmin didn’t even try to reconcile with him. It made leaving easier somehow.
Until now, of course.
Changmin sighed again, and rubbed his face with his hands. He got up, straightening out his eyebrows [which he was sure were mussed after that] and walked across the room to get his coat.
Maybe a drink would solve the problem…for tonight.
As he checked his face in the mirror, he heard a loud commotion out in the hall. He shrugged it off. It was probably the twins again. They were the loudest guys on the hall, which Changmin found ironic, because Koreans were usually pretty reserved. Or, maybe he was just thinking about himself. Changmin sighed, and shrugged this off as well, walking to the door with his coat in hand.
Changmin opened the door, and was about to step out, when a newspaper was shoved into his face.
“HyunJoong was finally convicted of sexual harassment on ten occasions,” a voice said. Changmin shoved the paper out of his face, briefly noting that it was written in korean, and looked at the person who’d intruded on his personal space.
“I testified against him. They couldn’t prove your case, though, because all they had was my word.”
Changmin simply stared at the emaciated man standing before him. After a whole year of silence.
“Jaejoong-ah…”
“Look, I know this wasn’t a very good idea. Me coming here without telling you. Because you probably don’t want to see me. But, I thought you might want to know about HyunJoong…after what he did to you,” he said, cutting Changmin off. His words rushed out all in one breath, as if he’d practiced the lines hundreds of times, and was determined to say them before Changmin could say anything.
Knowing Jaejoong, that’s probably exactly what he did.
“Jaejoong,…”
“He confessed to me, Changmin, out of pride. He told me that he’d orchestrated that whole event just to…hurt me for turning him down. Because, you see, earlier in the year, he hit on me again, and I literally told him to fuck off and never touch me again, or I would report him. He told me he chose you because he knew you wouldn’t rat on him, and I…” here he paused, a smiled a little, “Well, I punched him in the face. But, after he told me all of that, I reported him, and his case ended up going to court, because there were so many victims…”
Jaejoong stopped talking, slightly out of breath, and simply stared at Changmin with a doe-eyed look. Changmin saw that his cheeks had thinned out, and his shoulders were bonier than he remembered. He looked down, and saw that his belt had extra loops cut out of them, probably by Jaejoong himself. He always did wear the smallest belt he could get…because his waist was so tiny. His shirt, which Changmin noted was one of his old ones that he’d accidentally left at his house, hung around him like a tent. It made Changmin wonder.
“When was he convicted,” Changmin asked, taking the paper from Jaejoong’s hands, and walking back to his desk. He sat down in his chair and only half-heartedly scanned the article, complete with a mug shot. He decided it was a good look for HyunJoong.
“Uh…he was sentenced to jail for fifteen years, with the possibility of parole in ten,” Jaejoong answered, still standing at the door. Changmin looked up at him and noticed he was shivering.
“Well, come in. Take a blanket. You look like you’re going to freeze,” Changmin said, motioning to the bed opposite him.
Jaejoong clacked his shoes together. “Are you sure,” he asked, voice hesitant. Changmin licked his lips and set down the newspaper on his desk.
“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure, Jae,” he replied.
“Right,” Jaejoong said to himself, then walked in. Halfway to the bed, he turned around and closed the door, then came back. Changmin watched as he peeled a blanket off the end of the bed and loosely wrapped it around his shoulders. It really pained him to see Jaejoong so…weak. Is this what they’d done to each other?
Jaejoong cleared his throat. “You look well,” he offered.
“You look like shit,” Changmin replied. Jaejoong gave a dry chuckle.
“I devoted a lot of time to the case,” he explained.
Another silence fell, and Jaejoong took to looking around his dorm. His eyes lingered on the pictures of his roommate’s girlfriend, and noted everything from the sink and toothbrushes, to the rug on the floor. Changmin simply watched him, to see if any part of the old Jaejoong was buried somewhere deep within the hollow shell he saw now. He thought he might have recognized the quirk of his neck when he turned it. Or, maybe the way his fingers wrapped around the blanket, small and even more delicate than they used to be. They looked sinewy now. He thought he might have seen a glimpse when he tucked his knees close to his chest and rested his chin on them, eyes slowly coming full circle to look at him again.
“Where’s your roommate,” he asked, pointing to the other bed, and the pictures on the wall.
“He went home for the weekend. He lives an hour away,” he explained. Jaejoong made a small ‘o’ with his mouth, and a hoarse sound issued forth. It was an echo of the laugh Changmin had loved so much.
“Who, uhm,…who else testified against HyunJoong,” Changmin asked, trying to get Jaejoong to liven up. He hated seeing him so dead.
“Oh, loads of girls, and like, one other guy. Most of them were in our class,” he said, piping up, “Let’s see, there was Tiffany,…”
“Noooo, not Tiffany!”
“Mmhmm. And there was JanDi, and HyanGo…she was hurt twice. And…do you remember Ri-In?”
“Yes! Oh my goodness, innocent little Ri-In?”
“Yeah. She broke out in tears on the stand. And a girl who graduated before we got there…I don’t remember her name. Jung Yunho’s little sister…”
“Her? Aw, I’ll bet Yunho was furious.”
“Yeah, he was. Another girl, who was friends with the girl who graduated before us, and the other guy…I thik his name was…TaeMin. And of course, there was me,” Jaejoong finished, taking a deep breath, and then sighing.
“Wow,” Changmin breathed, “He really hurt a lot of people.”
“Mmhmm. And the thing that really bothered me was he wasn’t even sorry. He just sat there with a smug smile on his face the whole time. Until the jury read his sentence. Then he went crazy. He started yelling and raving nonesense. It was the weirdest thing I think I’ve ever seen.”
Changmin nodded and hummed. Another silence fell over them, and Changmin idly tugged at the fraying rip in his pants leg. He knew why Jaejoong had really come…and it wasn’t just to tell him about HyunJoong. He knew they both still felt the same way… Hell, Jaejoong had flown all the way to America. That was pretty much confirmation.
“You know,” he said, still inspecting the rip in his jeans, “I still want you. HyunJoong never changed that.”
He looked over at Jaejoong, who’d lifted his head off his knees, disbelieving what he’d heard.
“But what about this,” he asked, rolling his eyes around the dorm, “Don’t you want this?” He knew Jae was referring to the ‘great resume’ he’d talked about that afternoon when he’d broke the news to him.
“It’s not what I expected it to be,” Changmin said, “I’ve been miserable here. The only thing that remotely reminds me of back home are the twins that share a dorm down the hall.”
“I met them on my way in, actually. They seem like a nice pair,” Jaejoong added, but immediately bit his lip when he realized he’d interrupted. “Sorry.”
“It’s just not the same, Jae,” he said, getting up out of his chair and walking over to him. “I…I think I need to come home, is what I’m saying…and…”
“You want me to be waiting when you get there,” Jaejoong finished, trying not to divulge his pleased smile.
“More than that,” Changmin said, sitting down next to him. Jaejoong let his legs slide down. “I…want to love you again. I mean, I’ve tried to be with other guys…and even some girls…but it’s just not the same. I didn’t even really get past the first date with any of them. I always bailed out with some lame excuse.”
Jaejoong reached out from beneath the blanket and grasped Changmin’s hand. “I know,” he said, “I busied myself with this case, trying to forget you, but all the while working for you…and, it never really helped.”
“I can tell,” Changmin said, motioning towards his body, “You look like you starved yourself.”
“Pretty darn close,” Jae replied. “I just wanted to…forgive myself, I guess, because you wanted to do something with your life, and I was content to stay where I was…with you. I was being selfish.”
Changmin leaned closer to Jaejoong, and lightly pecked him on the lips. “You can be selfish about me all you want.”
Jaejoong smiled a little, then leaned in and kissed Changmin again. Deeper. Almost like he’d waited a year for this…which they kindof did. Changmin unwrapped Jaejoong from his blanket, and moved forward, so he would lay down on the bed. Carefully, so he wouldn’t break him, Changmin layed on top of him, and slowly ran his fingers through his hair. Jaejoong explored Changmin’s mouth carefully and slowly, relishing him like he would be gone tomorrow, and Changmin smiled a little bit.
“I missed you so much, Changmin,” Jae said through entertwined tongues.
“I missed you, too,” he said, pulling back so he could remove his shirt. Jae sat up a little, and did the same, revealing his gaunt ribcage. Every rib was showing.
“Oh my god, Jaejoong,” Changmin said, running his hands over his chest, “Look what you did.”
“You’re going to have to feed me up,” Jaejoong said, smiling a little. Changmin laughed, and reached to unbutton Jaejoong’s pants. He slid them off his thin frame, throwing them across the room, then did the same with his own. Jaejoong chuckled when Changmin began kissing his exposed ribs.
“You really weren’t kidding when you said wearing underwear wasn’t your style!”
“I just wanted to make it easy for you,” Changmin said, smiling against his chest.
He moved back up to Jaejoong, and caught his lips again, gently at first, then roughly. God, he’d missed him so much. He brought Jaejoong’s legs up around his hips, and Jaejoong clung to him. He guided his erection to his unprepared hole and slipped in slowly, watching Jaejoong as he clenched his teeth and started breathing faster.
“Ah…Changmin…ah-ah.”
Changmin kissed Jaejoong, distracting him, sliding his tongue over his, sucking on his lip, moving to his ear. He moved back to his lips, and Jaejoong grabbed his head, keeping him in place, and hungrily devouring him. It was like they’d never kissed before.
Changmin began to move, slowly, in and out, hoping he wasn’t hurting Jae too much. He looked like he couldn’t take a round like he could a year ago. Jaejoong surprised him, however, by pushing into him, letting his hands slide down to his hips to push him in harder. Changmin started going faster, deeper, moaning when Jaejoong tensed his muscles around him. He was still tight, just like back then.
“Ugh, Changmin!...Go faster,” Jaejoong begged. Changmin obeyed, and braced his feet against the bed frame. Jaejoong’s hand left his thigh and began stroking himself in time with Changmin.
“Oh…ah…Changmin…I’m so close,” he yelled. Changmin thrusted faster, finally coming into Jaejoong with a loud cry. Jaejoong came in his own hand one moment later, his hips shuddering around Changmin. He slowly slipped out of Jaejoong, and layed back down on the bed. Jaejoong unwrapped himself, panting as he turned over to lay on Changmin’s heaving chest. He pressed his frail body as close to Changmin’s side as he could.
Still panting, drawing circles around his nipple, Jaejoong looked up at Changmin. “I love you, you know,” he said.
Changmin brushed the hair out of Jaejoong’s eyes, and let his hand fall down his back.
“I love you, too, Jae.” He smiled, and put his head back on Changmin’s chest, allowing his breathing time to even out before he spoke again.
“You know…,” he began. Changmin detected a playful tone to his voice. “You didn’t come three times…you only came once.”
Changmin laughed outright. “Do you think you could fix that then,” he asked. When Jaejoong looked up at him, his eyes shone and sparkled, and even though his wide smile made him look more emaciated, Changmin thought he saw more of the old Jaejoong in that moment than from the time he walked in the door.
“Can I fix that,” he mocked, rolling on top of Changmin, “I’ll make you wish you hadn’t already come once.”
“Because, even if running doesn’t get us anywhere,
At least we found something greater in the midst of the chase.”