Nari sits among bloody tissues and Band-Aid wrappers and cotton swabs and a bottle of half-emptied isopropyl alcohol and her eyes were tired and sad.
"I spoke with Renjun," she said quietly.
He freezes for just a half second. "And what has that hot head prick been telling you?"
"He's not a prick," she says angrily and the barest hint of something freezes and drops in his stomach and tightens his chest. "And I think he's right, Jeno"
He snorts. "Oh please. Don't tell me you agree with that stupid addiction thing."
"It is an addiction and you know it!" she says hotly, springing to her feet. Her tall Versace boots crunched the snow as she stomped over to him. "And it's going to kill you if you don't stop—"
"Well maybe that's what I want!" he shouts at her, turning around and it takes everything in Nari not to shrink back from the hellfire burning in the depths of those obsidian eyes.
"Maybe that's the way I want to go! Not everyone gets the chance to choose how they die and I just got my chance handed to me on a silver platter and by God, I'm going take full advantage of this and get as much pleasure as I can out of it before I die!"
"Well there are people, people in this world, who don't want you to die!" she screams back and now there are tears falling from her eyes and splattering onto her Marc Jacobs coat. "There's Renjun and, and—"
"Oh please, everyone wants me to die," Jeno says, laughing. It was an odd sound, full of insanity and sadness and horror and fear.
"I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE!"she shrieks, losing it.
"WHAT ABOUT ME, JENO? HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT I DON'T WANT YOU TO FIGHT TILL YOU'RE ALL BLOODY AND BROKEN? HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT THAT I GET SCARED THAT I'LL BE SITTING HERE IN THIS SPOT WAITING FOR YOU TO SHOW UP ONE NIGHT AND YOU DON'T?! THAT MAYBE I DON'T WANT YOU TO TEAR YOURSELF APART BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPID ADDICTION?!"
She's crying now and all he could do is stare at her. "I love you…," she sobs. "And I don't want to see you now and know one day I'll never see you again and the only thing I'll be looking at is a gravestone."
She hiccups, spent, and slumps to the ground, sitting on the wet, icy snow. Silence fell and there was nothing but the wind as the first snowflakes fall from the clouded heavens.
"This is why I wanted no one to fall in love with me, and why I didn't want to fall in love," he eventually said.
Nari lets out a low, exhausted sob and he goes and kneels in front of her, staring into her eyes.
"I don't love you," he says quietly and she starts to turn away, but he grasps her face, not letting her gaze escape his. "And I can't stop."
His voice is quiet, with an undercurrent of desperation that no one on this living earth has ever heard before. "You don't understand, Nari, I can't stop. I tried, once, for Renjun after I knocked him out and sent him into that week-long coma. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat."
He lets out a long breath. "That's why I want to die, because the only way I can stop is if I die and the only way I want to die is in the pit."
She looks at him with wide, pleading eyes. "Please don't give up," she whispers, the desperation in her voice making something in him jump and twist. "I'll get you a good doctor. With-With the right therapy, you'll be okay."
"I've been… like this… for years," he said in a defeated voice. "I don't see how."
"Then we'll limit it. You can still fight; just… don't go in there with the intent of trying to kill yourself. Do it for fun, or something." She was babbling, clutching at his coat with urgency.
"Or you can open a fighting school and teach people how to fight. Renjun said mister lee taught you how so maybe you can pass those on to others. Or you can be a bodyguard or something or…" She gulped for air when she found her lungs were getting tight.
"You should do something productive with that urge, Jeno," she said. "Turn that energy and focus from your addiction into something else."
He stares at her for long minutes before he lets out a long breath. "Okay," he said quietly.
"Okay?" she looks at him a little fearfully, unsure of what he wanted to do.
"I'll go talk to someone about this," he muttered, looking away from her because for once in his life, there was finally a glint, a glimmer, of a silver lining. "So they can find options for me to deal with it. I kinda like that fighting school thing, but I dunno if I wanna teach kids and stuff…"
Nari looks at him with growing hope as he continues to speak and if she could, she would've thrown her arms around him, but this was Jeno and she hesitated to do so.
However, she put her hand on his arm and he looked at her and she stared at him with bright eyes and a large, smile on her face.
"What?" he asks when she doesn't speak.
She lets out a choked laugh and wipes at her eyes. "Thank you." The gratitude in her voice makes his cheeks burn with an unfamiliar heat and he looks away.
"You're welcome."
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