BAMF - PT. 1

The air crackles with that familiar hum, a sound like the world hiccupping, and I'm gone—BAMF! There's nothing quite like it, the rush of atoms splitting and dashing to make room for me. It's like mainlining pure adrenaline, with a side of cosmic mischief. Hi, I'm your friendly neighborhood BAMF, professional place-hopper and sarcasm enthusiast. My teleportation? It's not just a party trick—it's an art form, and every performance has its own distinctive riff.

"Bamf" isn't just the noise my power makes; it's my trademark. Some people get theme songs or catchphrases. Me? I get the electric symphony of space tearing open.

"Never gets old," I whisper to myself, steadying my breathing. I can feel the energy coursing through me, a relentless tide pulling me toward the next jump, the next escape. It's intoxicating, this power of mine; the thrill of emerging somewhere else, the shock on people's faces when I pop into existence—it's a high that nothing else can match.

But as the surge recedes and my heartbeat steadies, the cost weighs heavy on my shoulders. The faces of those I've left hanging mid-conversation, the dates I've bailed on because I couldn't resist the call to leap elsewhere—it's all there in the back of my mind. Ame's voice echoes a reprimand I’ve heard too many times, sharp and practical: "You can't keep doing this. People aren't just waypoints in your personal obstacle course."

She's right, of course. Ame always is. But it's one thing to know it, another entirely to change it. And Charles, with his methodical ways and direct words, he'd say something painfully true, like, "Every time you vanish, part of you stays gone. You're fracturing your own life." His sincerity would cut through me, leaving me to ponder the shards of relationships I've left in my wake.

I shake my head, trying to dispel their voices. They don't understand the pull, the need to move, to feel my body tearing through space only to be rebuilt again. Yet somewhere deep down, buried beneath the layers of excitement and freedom, I know they have a point. I'm running away from more than just physical locations—I'm fleeing from connections, from commitments, from the very things that might ground me as surely as gravity itself.

"Damn it," I mutter, clenching my fists. The addictive nature of my powers is a siren's call I struggle to resist, even when I know the rocks are perilously close. And each time I give in, I can almost hear Ines's intuitive voice softly warning me, "You're chasing horizons when happiness might just be where you stand."

It's a battle within me, a fight between the allure of my abilities and the desire for a life richer than the fleeting moments between jumps. A life where I’m present long enough to let someone truly see me—not just the afterimage of a person who was there one second and gone the next.

Now, I stand outside Javier's restaurant, my heart still thudding with the ghost of old terror. The vibrant hum of life surges around me, a stark contrast to the chaos inside my head. Javier’s place is an oasis in the urban jungle, warm light spilling onto the sidewalk, the smells of spices and seared meats beckoning the hungry and the weary. Patrons laugh, clinking glasses in celebration of the mundane moments I so often miss.

I push the door open, stepping across the threshold. The ambiance wraps around me, a comforting blanket made of chatter and savory scents. Javier’s restaurant is alive in ways I seldom allow myself to be, grounded in the tangible joys of existence.

I hover at the entrance, adrift amidst the bustle. The wooden floors are solid underfoot, the laughter genuine, and I can't help but feel like an intruder. In this space where every detail is curated to nourish the soul, I am the discordant note, the wayward wind threatening to extinguish the candles that flicker on each table.

"Get it together," I whisper, summoning a smile as I scan the room for Javier, ready to anchor myself to his earthly presence, if only for a while.

He stands by the kitchen doorway, a towering figure among the bustling waitstaff, his eyes meeting mine across the room. Javier. The clamor dims as I focus on him, his presence an anchor in the swell of city life that threatens to sweep me away.

"Hey," he says, his voice a deep rumble that seems to resonate within my very bones. It's a simple greeting, but it carries the weight of a hundred conversations, each syllable wrapping around me like a grounding force. In his eyes, there's an ember of warmth that could easily ignite into passion or flare up into anger—so often now it's the latter.

"Hi," I reply, matching his brevity, but not the solidity behind it. I'm always floating, skimming the surface of things, ready to vanish at a moment's notice.

We sit, and the wooden chair is firm beneath me, a stark reminder of how long it's been since I've allowed myself to just be still. Javier's restaurant hums with energy, yet here we are in our own little bubble of tense calm.

"Disappeared again last night," he says, and there's no missing the accusation in his tone, even though it's softened by concern. The words hang between us, a familiar specter at our table.

"Only for a moment," I deflect, my voice tinged with sarcasm. "Had to ensure the moon hadn't fallen from the sky. You know, typical Tuesday vigilance."

"Right," he scoffs, leaning back in his chair. His gaze holds mine, searching for something I'm not sure I can give. "Sometimes I wish you'd just lose your powers at the bottom of a cereal box. Then maybe you'd stick around long enough for dessert."

"Careful what you wish for, Javi," I retort, the edge in my voice sharper than intended. "You might just find yourself missing my grand exits."

"Or I might find myself actually getting to know you," he counters quietly, and the soft blow feels like a punch to the gut. I look away, the walls suddenly closing in.

"Getting to know me might be overrated," I mutter, more to myself than to him. But Javier hears—it's hard not to when the space between us thrums with all the things we don't say out loud.

The clatter of cutlery against porcelain barely registers over the pulse pounding in my ears, a metronome to my scattered thoughts. The air is fragrant with spices and warmth, but it's the ghost of another scent that haunts me now—the crisp bite of autumn in Seoul, overlaid with the sweet sweat of stage lights.

---

Jinwoo had caught my wrist that night, his grip firm, his gaze a storm of hurt and disbelief. "You're doing it again," he'd accused, voice tight as the silence I left behind on too many occasions. His features, always so smooth under the spotlight, had crumpled like a discarded script—one that spelled out a drama where I played the vanishing act.

"Where did you go this time?" he'd asked, the words edged with a plea I hadn't known how to answer. There were no rifts in space I could have pointed to, no physical place to explain the emotional distance I created every time I slipped away.

"Sorry," I'd whispered, a liar's lullaby that did nothing to bridge the growing chasm between us.

"Sorry doesn't bring back the moments you miss, BAMF," Jinwoo had said, releasing my wrist as if letting go of something already lost.

---

"Earth to BAMF." Javier's deep voice pulls me back, his hand reaching across the table to gently fold over mine. "You're doing it again. You're here, but not really here."

I blink, the restaurant swims back into focus, and the ghost of Jinwoo fades into the clinking glasses and low murmur of conversation that wraps around us.

"Sorry," I say, because it's a word that fills spaces even when it can't mend them. "Old habits."

Javier's thumb strokes the back of my hand, a gesture that anchors me more than I care to admit. "I know your mind travels faster than the rest of us, but I can't help feeling left behind."

His eyes search mine, and I'm struck by the mix of hurt and understanding that never quite seems to leave them. It's the look of a man who has built his life on solid ground, only to find himself loving a human tempest—an addict chasing the next teleportation high.

"Javi," I start, then falter. How do you promise stillness to someone when you're made of motion?

"Look," he says softly, "I just want to be part of your world. The real one, not the ones you escape to."

His words are a tether, a call to stay grounded, to exist in more than just spurts of presence. But even as they resonate somewhere deep within me, I feel the pull of unseen currents, the call of the wild energies coursing through my veins.

"Is it worth it?" Javier asks, and it's less an accusation now, more an invitation to explore the map of my own heart—to see if there's a path I haven't yet taken, one that leads to him, to us.

"Is what worth it?" I reply, though we both know the question isn't really for him. It's for the woman who bears the name BAMF—a badge of power and a reminder of all the times I've used it to disappear.

"Javi, you know I'm not the stay-put type," I quip with a half-smirk, my voice laced with that same sarcasm that's as much a shield as my powers. The smirk doesn't quite reach my eyes. "I mean, who wouldn't want to zap across continents in the blink of an eye?"

His gaze holds mine, steady and unamused. I can almost hear his patience fraying, like the sound of wings against the night sky—fleeting yet persistent. My own heart thumps, a traitor to the casual facade.

But beneath the quips, there's this gnawing void, a hollow sensation where certainty should be. I wrap my arms around myself, as if I could physically hold together the parts of me threatening to scatter. It's not just about discipline or the lack thereof—it's the deep-seated fear that maybe, just maybe, I'm incapable of being anchored. That for all my power, I can't control the impulse to flee, to teleport away from anything that resembles permanence.

Every BAMF—a sound that once thrilled—now pounds in my ears like an accusation. And I'm caught in the rush of it, the high that comes with vanishing and reappearing, leaving behind a trail of confusion and abandoned moments.

"Sometimes I wonder..." My voice trails off, a thread lost in the tapestry of our conversation. I look past Javier, through the windows of his homey restaurant at the bustling world beyond—one that doesn't flicker in and out of existence on a whim. "Is any thrill worth the mess it leaves behind?"

It's a question that digs its claws into the meat of my thoughts, tearing through the veil of exhilaration that comes with each teleport. There's a weight to it, a gravity that tugs at the very essence of who I am—or who I'm supposed to be.

"Imagine being able to escape anything, Javi. Any mistake, any awkward moment... just gone, like—" I snap my fingers, the sound sharp in the quiet between us. But even as I say it, there's an echo of something else, something that yearns for the stillness I see in him. For roots that run deep, connections that don't evaporate with the next adventure. It's terrifying, the pull of that thought. As wild and untamed as the forces I wield, and yet as intimate as a whisper.

"Freedom," I murmur, the word slipping out like a confession. Is it really freedom when it costs you every chance at something real? At someone like Javier, who watches me now with a blend of hope and resignation?

My mind races, a frantic pulse of energy that mirrors the chaos of my abilities. But beneath it all, there's a thrumming desire for something more than just the adrenaline of escape. There's a longing for connection, a tether to this world that doesn't consist of fleeting shadows and midnight arrivals.

"Freedom," I repeat, softer this time, feeling the word settle in my chest like a stone in water—sinking, sinking, pulling me down to depths unknown.

I can't ignore the weight of Javier's gaze, heavy like the gravity that binds me to this earth. His deep voice cuts through the hum of the restaurant.

"Listen, I love you," he starts, his words reaching for me across the table, "but this...disappearing act? It's not just about you. It's about us."

I flinch, feeling the sharp edge of truth in his tone. The plates and glasses on our table seem to blur, my vision tunneled on the man whose patience I've worn thin as gossamer wings.

"Every time you vanish, a part of me wonders if you'll ever come back. That's no way to live, for either of us." Javier's hands are steady, the antithesis of my trembling fingers. "I need to know you're all in. Not just here one moment and gone the next."

His eyes hold mine, pools of earnestness that threaten to drown my chaotic impulses. I feel the tremor of my powers, coiled beneath my skin like a living thing, desperate to spring free and take flight. The urge to teleport, to escape this confrontation, is a siren call, but I fight it. For him. For me.

"Javi," I begin, the word a struggle. "I don't know how to be still. My whole life is movement, is change."

"But that's not true," he counters, leaning forward. His warmth beckons, a promise of the home I never knew I wanted. "You've built something incredible. You have friends who care, a city that thrives on your protection. Isn't that worth staying put for?"

I'm torn, splintered between the heady thrill of my abilities and the ache for the mundane bliss he offers. My heart races, a drumbeat out of sync with the world around me. I am BAMF, master of teleportation, yet a slave to my own restless soul.

"Maybe," I whisper, the admission a crack in my armor.

"Maybe" hangs in the air, a fragile possibility. Javier reaches across the table, his hand brushing mine, grounding me. In his touch, I sense the potential of a thousand unspoken promises, a future where freedom doesn't mean solitude.

"Think about it, okay?" he says softly.

I nod, lost in the maelstrom of my thoughts. The conversation dwindles, leaving an echo of unresolved tension. I'm caught in a battle between the allure of the night sky, begging me to dance among the stars, and the earthbound yearning for something as simple as a shared smile over morning coffee.

My power whispers to me, a seductive undertow, but the image of Javier's steadfast presence anchors me—for now. There's a journey ahead, a path of self-discovery that winds through both shadow and light. And I stand at its precipice, uncertain which way to leap.

I stand, the chair scraping beneath me like a thunderclap in my stormy mind. Javier's eyes, warm and unwavering, lock onto mine, a lighthouse in emotional tempests. I should sit back down, talk it through, choose him. My heart flutters, a trapped bird against the cage of my ribs.

"Javier, I—" The words choke in my throat, strangled by indecision. His hand reaches out, a silent plea etched into the lines of his palm.

The air crackles with the tension of unmade choices, the electricity of paths not taken buzzing against my skin. I close my eyes, envisioning the delicate strands of possible futures, each one fraying as I teeter on the edge of now.

But the pull is there, insistent, a siren's call that sings of elsewhere. BAMF—they named me for the sound of escape, didn't they? A moniker for the woman who can't stay put because stillness feels like suffocation.

"Sorry," I murmur, the word a ghost of breath on my lips. I picture his face, the crinkle of concern between his brows, and it's almost enough to anchor me.

Almost.

With a twist of will and a wrench of longing, I let go. The world collapses into itself, a singularity of sensation where time and space lose meaning. I'm everywhere and nowhere, and then—

BAMF!

I stumble slightly as reality reforms around me, the dislocation jarring me back to myself. The echo of my departure rings in my ears, a refrain of regret that vibrates through the alleys of this unfamiliar place.

I'm alone, surrounded by shadows that cling to the cold walls of an empty street. The soft hum of the city murmurs beyond, a reminder of life continuing without me.

"Damn it," I breathe into the silence, the sound hollow, devoured by the void between stars. Here I am, cloaked in solitude, the very thing I sought to avoid with every impulsive leap.

I hug my arms around myself, seeking solace in my own embrace. It's a poor substitute for the warmth I left behind, the steady heart that might have synchronized with mine if only I'd let it.

"Choices," I whisper to the night, a confession to the moon. With every departure, I leave pieces of myself scattered across the tapestry of existence—frayed edges that never quite weave back together.

I must decide: the ephemeral rush of power or the enduring touch of connection. But for tonight, I am adrift, suspended in the space between breaths, grappling with the weight of who I am and who I could be.

---

Part 2