Hung Up On The Stars • ChenJi

sixteen

He runs.

He runs away ignoring their concerned faces.

He runs away leaving everything and everyone behind.

He runs away from his feelings to somewhere he doesn't know the path to.

His breath retches and the exhaustion drips down his nerves. The lack of oxygen acts as a sign of growing heart rate and sooner or later, it begs to cease. But still he doesn't take the form to stop.

He runs on the street not knowing where to go, he sees passing cars and bicycles and people walking but metaphorically running in the race of life. Not knowing the destination, he searches. He searches the land where he is at.

He stops with the traffic man asking him to stop and as the sign turned green.

Maybe one's break becomes the time for someone else to depart. One has to fall down for others to rise up.

Then later he walks up to a park with children playing and trees sprinting with full of hope and the compass for the route of life and achievement.

A tree was on the left side, isolated and different from the other trees. He saw that it was dry and almost dead with less than twenty leaves holding onto it's dear life to make an invincible logically valid point of it being alive. He notices the gentle breeze that passes through his wound on his skin and at the same time causing the leaves to fly away.

With the urge and anxiety building up, he runs again at the tree to prevent them from falling down. He takes larger strides to reach the tree which was losing its leaves with the speed of air.

As he reached the tree, he saw that all the leaves were subjected to the ground making peace with the autumn fall.

Jisung almost felt like giving up on life.

He walks his tired feet to the lake just below the slope of the path beside the tree and sits down.

He looks at the reflection of his face inside the clear water of the lake and reminisces the image of his own in the morning mirror. He takes his hand trying to soak them in water for some stillness and comfort.

"Oh Jisung, you are here?"

He turns back to see the image of his wrinkled, short grey-haired grandmother eyeing him curiously.

"Are you here with your friends?"

He doesn't answer and she leaves a tired noise from her lips before she comes down to sit with him.

He doesn't notify her with a response of her presence beside him as she asks him, "What happened? Why are you silent?"

As they say a 'what happened' from somebody can shower out all the tears you had wanted to suppress, he lets out a cry.

She further looks at his injured hand and asks him, "what's this? How?"

He breaks down saying, "grandma, I don't like this. I don't like it at all."

"What? What do you not like?"

He then explains everything. Everything that troubled him since the morning and what all happened in the house causing him to become a broken wreck of what he is now.

"Please don't hate us, Jisung." She says caressing his cheek.

He rubs his eyes, "No, I don't hate you at all. I am sorry for what I have said."

"It's true that they say people become more forgiving when in pain sometimes."

"But- but I messed up real bad. Now I can't face anybody in the house. I just don't want to go back. You won't believe me grandma, but I feel like giving up on everything."

"Why do you want to give up, dear? And if you don't go back, that means do you want to leave us behind?"

"It's not like anybody's life would change. No body depends on me for their day. I am the one who depends on you all. It wouldn't be a problem. I'm nothing more than a burden."

"Jisung, that's not at all right. You are still a child, a nurturing child who needs to grow old. Of course you need help but in the future, you would be needed my somebody. In fact your parents need you to take care of them when their bodies get saggy. Why do you chose to run away from your responsibilities?"

"I am not really running."

He is.

"You are. What is this if it's not running? You don't want to face the truth. And why do you even want to give up? You still have a long way to go, my child. You still have a lot to learn and nourish and develop. Why do you want to hold back especially if nature has so much to give and your soul yearns so much to take? And time. You still have so much time and time is the best teacher in your life. Don't disregard it by manipulating it for your own reasons."

"But- I am- I am actually very scared right now." He says picking his skin.

"You ought to be. There are times in your life when you would have to lose your sense of reasoning. And if you don't, it only means that you have nothing to lose, because you have nothing at all. But you can never have nothing. Because you have us, Jisung. We are ready to help you always at any given time. Please do not hesitate to ask us if you need."

Jisung looks at her with the daze falling on her face and the way she looks so peaceful and hopeful and truthful
when she says that.

Her presence humbles him into being the professional complainer all the time whenever he accuses her of being one. She seemed very non judgemental and compassionate and her warm fingers rub his shoulders encircling in her wrinkled arms.

Jisung returns the hug truthfully.

~tbc~