their new dawn. | inso's law

08 # dead or alive

choi joon is drowning and he doesn't know if he'll make it out alive this time.

he folds into himself, palms collecting piling tears as his sobs continue to tumble freely throughout his ricochetting body.

the revolting monster he had been trying to chain down and cage finally escaped, unleashing the ugly darkness of his mind; his nauseating mentality put out on display in a glass cage.

it claws and rips through the crevices of his mind, reaps misery in its wake while shredding brutality in its shadow. it reaches for his most vulnerable parts and then tears them at the seams, relentlessly gutting out the emotions that barely kept him alive.

his tears burn. his throat hurts. his heart weeps.

he's unaware of when chae ai reaches out for him, pulling his tear-stricken body into her arms and molding him with her body as she embraces him in a tight hold. he barely registers the sweet nothings that murmur inside his ears.

"it's okay. it's okay. cry everything out," the blonde soothes, patting his back like a lulling wave. he feels like a child again, and that makes him cry harder.

he cries and he cries and he cries.

chae ai never pulls away.

his cries eventually die down, broken and meshed into quiet hiccups of air. he's still in her arms, her hands having not stopped once since the moment she tugged him into her lap.

there's a silence which simmers betweens them, nothing besides the distant shrieks interrupting their otherwise stilled world.

eventually, choi joon finds himself shuffling off her lap and to her side. he doesn't have the energy to feel embarrassed. chae ai doesn't have the energy to tease.

their shoulders are touching as the silence finally settles in.

"i.." her fingers twitch before tangling with each other. it doesn't stop the noticeable quiver. "i don't know what i can say to you to make you feel better," she starts, exhaling slowly. "i can barely figure out the solutions for my own problems."

he nods, swallowing dryly. he never intended to cry. he never intended to ask her for an answer either. he knows there never will be one.

"but," and suddenly she's slipping his hands into her own palms, forcing him to meet her gaze, "choi kim joon. you aren't choi joon. you don't have to be choi joon. it sucks you bear his consequences, but that doesn't mean you have to endure them."

he blinks slowly.

"joonie. i've been thinking about what you said to me that day at the seaside. for days, i really thought about it hard but i could never did find another route you spoke of.." she brushes a raven strand behind his ear, "not until now at least."

as she plants their heads together, her hands come to cup his face. she swipes at his eyelids, forcing them to a fluttering shut. "it's not fair, i know. we have to pretend to be people we're not, lose traces of our old identity and be people we don't even know."

chae ai laughs. "but, nobody asked us to take their places joon. nobody asked us to be people we aren't. we do it out of guilt, out of love, out of compassion; but never was it something we had to do."

he opens his eyes. she's smiling. "i think it's okay to let go, it's okay to be ourselves. we did what we thought was best for them, for the original chae ai and choi joon; but, it's time we think for ourselves."