I feel a few glances on me but refuse to pay attention to them. I refuse to pay attention to it despite these brambles that grow always more around my heart. I refuse to pay attention to it, but I have no choice.
I have no choice, I suffer without being able to do anything about it. It's easy to think you're better than them, but when the world watches you as an animal... How can you think you're not the mistake? How could I ignore these sneers? How could I ignore these whispers when someone walks past me?
I feel the tips of my feet hit the concrete, then my heel settles there. Each step is a new torture. Each step is fear soaring in my stomach.
Each step is a new door that I refuse to open, an apprehension of what lies behind growing inside of me.
So I don't go any further. I stay there, in the middle of this street.
But all eyes are still on me. The sneers always reach my ears.
What if I wasn't the cause of this attention? If paranoia had come over me?
But this feeling of always being watched... It does come from somewhere, doesn't it? Maybe I am victimizing myself? Maybe I'm weak enough that my brain makes up this pain?
What if I was lying to myself? If I wasn't who I claim to be?
Seo Changbin... Stop asking yourself questions... Go ahead. You have to move on. You gotta go get that damn bread.
- Hello, miss !
I smile, against my will, at the saleswoman. I am uncomfortable. She stares at me. I ask her for bread and she hands it to me hesitantly.
Does she think I'm biting? That I will infect her?
I do not retort and pay her, quickly leaving the store. I hurry home, putting on my huge hood to hide my hair.
Once my house's door is closed, I sigh deeply, thinking my ordeal is over. I'm only waiting for one thing: to go up to my room, put headphones on my ears and never go out again.
- Haneul!
But it isn't for now.
- Come and bring me the bread and help me with dinner!
My body starts to shake, but I calm down, stroking the gap between my thumb and forefinger with my thumb. I walk slowly to the kitchen and my mother smiles at me when she sees me. I hand her the bread and she sighs.
- Why do you keep hiding your beautiful black hair?
- Because I don't like it, mom. It annoys me, I would prefer to cut it.
She frowns.
- But darling. I allow you to put on your brother's old clothes but I won't allow you to make the same cut! You must be feminine! How do you plan to please a man, otherwise?
I tie my long hair into a high ponytail and then go wash my hands. I like to feel the water running over my skin, it's refreshing and it allows me to think of other things.
- Why do I have to please a man?
Her gaze is stern and I know I have to stop asking questions. So I shut up and start to prepare the meal.
I cut the vegetables thinly before browning them in a pan. The heat of the plate caresses my arm and tears come to my eyes, but I swallow them. I don't have to think about it, not now.
- I prefer you silent. When you're married, don't talk too much. Unless you have to ask your husband how his day went!
- And if I want to tell him mine?
She shrugs her shoulders.
- Your father never wants to know mine because he finds it uninteresting.
I look down, seeing that her last piece of meat isn't cut straight. She's shaking. She feels bad. She feels trapped, but cannot free herself.
I understand her so much.
I am a prisoner of my own body and there is nothing I can do about it.
When the meal is in the oven, I go upstairs and lock myself in my room. I stretch out on my bed, pulling my hood down, and pushing my headphones into my ears. My music vibrates in my skull and I feel like I'm finally me.
Fnally Seo Changbin.
Tears bead at the corners of my eyes and I feel my lips shaking. I'm scared, so scared. I only want one thing: to run away. Very far.
But I can not.
Because the very far I want to go could destroy my mother. And I love her more than anything.
Yes, she is tough. She doesn't understand what I've been trying to explain her for several months. But how to understand? How could she possibly understand something so complex or even improbable? Of course she's tough and resent me for being different. Even I hate myself for it. So I understand her feeling.
People's dislike of the person I am is something that I've gotten used to. It's something that I understand, even if it terrifies me and slowly kills me.
I look at the time. I have to go set the table.
I stealthily go downstairs, not wishing to be noticed. But my father is in the dining room.
- Haneul! Come here!
I lower my head and obey.
- The school called me. Do you keep refusing to put on your skirt?
- I don't feel comfortable in it.
He chuckles.
- What do you mean "not comfortable"? It's very good, a skirt! Very comfortable! Why do you refuse to put it on?
My legs are shaking and I feel like I can collapse any second.
- I don't like people to see my legs.
I can tell by the smell he gives off that he drank. Not a lot, he's not drunk, but just enough to get easily pissed off.
He looks at me up and down.
- What's that tomboy look, Haneul? We already told you to stop with your bullshit!
He grabs me by the collar and forces me to look at him. I bite my bottom lip in order not to burst into tears in front of him.
- You're a fucking girl, Haneul! A girl who is going to be fucked by a guy with money and you are going to get out of this house for us to be finally free!
I can't hold back my tears any longer. He grabs my chest with his big hand.
- That, you see, that proves what I'm telling you. You're a girl, with boobs and with a fucking skirt! The next time you don't put on a skirt in high school, you're not my daughter anymore.
I nod my head sharply and he lets go. But I go up to my room crying. Another dinner that I won't taste.
I undress and hurry into the shower, tears still streaming down my cheeks without being able to stop. Water runs over my body and I feel dirty. Or messed up. I don't really know. But I rub my skin again and again with a sponge, until it hurts. Until having marks. Until all the filth of human beings is removed from my dermis. But despite everything, I can't do it. Although I spend too much time under this cold water, I still have the feeling of his hands on my breast which makes me want to vomit.
I feel so bad. I feel so lonely.
I get out of the shower, putting on some tracksuit pants and a sweatshirt that is way too big for me. I'm still shaking but my panic attack seems to have subsided. I sit on my bed and bend over, looking for a small box under it that I pull and open. I take the cigarette between my fingers and light it with the orange lighter that was in the same place.
I take a whiff of this killer drug and walk to my window. It is already dark, but there are no stars.
Will I one day shine in the sky? Will I one day be a star?
But ... If I fell like a shooting star, what would happen?
I look at my lit cigarette and without hesitating more than that, I put it on my arm, of which I first rolled up the sleeve. I take it off quickly, the heat removing layer by layer my skin. Then I take a whiff of tobacco and start over, smiling every time my skin burns. Crying every time the pain takes hold of my body.
I crush my cigarette and walk towards my bed, in which I lie down, thinking of the next day.
YOU ARE READING
Not A Girl- Minbin
Fanfiction"Changbin is a boy. That's what he keeps telling his parents who don't accept him. However, when he meets Minho at a party, he finally sees the possibility of appearing under his real self. " I translated my own story (from @SunSungie) into English...
