Caraphernelia, Kim Sunwoo .

Prologue ✶ Cigarettes out the Window

Though I've long quit smoking, my fingers continue to reek of cigarettes and my teeth remain stained. And no matter how thoroughly I wash my hands, my memory persists to be full of you. I am systematically haunted by it—by the scent of tobacco and the deep-rooting sensation of burning embers in my alveoli. And it hurts beyond imagination, how damaged cells cling onto each other desperately every time I take a hit.

Kim Sunwoo, I should have never picked up that lighter.

I don't even remember when I first did it, or why I did it. To be honest, my memories of the past twenty-three years are unclear—almost as if I only first stepped foot on earth at the over-ripe age of twenty four, when I first met you.

As if I only started existing because of you.

And it makes me feel like rotting fruit, with a prime so horridly short that the one tasked with sinking their teeth into my flesh barely has the time—if any at all—to enjoy my sweet, before I decay on their tongue. Why does it feel like my lungs have reached limit, and will disintegrate in my ribcage if I try to breathe in once more? It seems my body further falls apart each time I try to start anew.

Have you put a curse on me, Kim Sunwoo?

Is that why, whenever my heart feels as if it is to finally skip a beat, you show face again, shimmering like a rare ray of light reflecting off the ocean's surface on a hazy afternoon; otherworldly, and seemingly in my reach.

Kim Sunwoo, you're a disillusion that'll always be. A flickering light; a shadow on the wall.

Because despite your beauty—and despite your human soul—you abide forever untouchable. You manage to slip right through my fingers time and time again, brushing my hand in a manner that'll inevitably leave burns and yellow stains on my fingertips.

Maybe you did curse me, because I can't seem to run, even if my lungs would have endured.

So, I mustered up the courage and chased you instead, but you outran me with ease. Why won't you allow anyone to catch you? Are you afraid that you'll scare people away when they feel the heat of your destruction? Is this your strange attempt at saving me? By running away to where I can't follow? Because I am not scared, I wasn't back when we met, and neither am I scared now while you stand back and watch the fire scourge through the ashes of my skins.

I guess I was unfortunate enough to experience getting dropped to the floor.

Perhaps it isn't you, but the stratosphere that shields me from it all. Maybe a God is messing around with the colors in the heavens until it turns bright blue, just to have it spin back around and force me to court a sky bruised in deep oranges and purple for the fun of it. And when it does, I become aware of how my face and my lungs, too, have bruised into a permanent mix of purple and blue, as a reminder of all the hits I took.

Regardless, it is only I who can be blamed. After all, I willingly set us aflame, I let the sparks dance freely between us and I let it cost me my heart.

But I won't let it cost me my spirit, too.

So if you want so badly to be Psyche and weave your fingers through the strands of my soul, at least braid them back together. At least do me that favor, Kim Sunwoo. Even if it hurts.

I beg of you.