The Afterlife

9) Through the Living and the Dead

Yoohyeon was slumped over the couch; there was not much times when she could do so.

Although silent, the air inside her studio apartment ran quick past her skin, nipping on the tiniest bits of her sanity.

She was alright; she was fine, or so she believed and told herself, but when there was nothing to blame for her uncertainties and burdens, there was just as much to do about it. While she lied down on her small couch - one of the very few furniture lying here and there in her rented flat - she eventually found herself curled up, going as close as possible to the corners and narrowest of possibilities inside the mere couch.

The cold was subsiding by the hours that time of the year, and Yoohyeon hoped that the weight over her chest would do so as well, perhaps jealous, envious of the world's seasons that came and went as freely as they pleased.

She could not get herself to sulk, to whine, to complain - she believed she had no right to. Love, that was, a wronging in the very rightness, a certain road with very, very uncertain hurdles. Love, that was, the only thing Yoohyeon believed was out of control.

It had been the case for years, as well as for her uncontrollable choice to speak. Yoohyeon repeated to herself that there was no room for her voice, no right for her to invade someone else's heart, and most of all, she feared that her feelings would die with sympathy, that they would be met with guilt, rocking both hearts against the currents of sea.

If even to herself she could not confess the truth, then she was sure no truth shall ever be spoken, whether it be to her own heart or another's. She feared her own being, existence, and she feared losing or being lost. She feared hurting and being hurt, and she feared the wholly uncertain existence that was herself.

Yoohyeon feared love, yet love was the first mature emotion she let invade her caged heard, but bones and flesh and all blood made no sense to such powerful ruling, and they were all spilt when Yoohyeon met Minji.

The mere thought of the name had her shrinking further into the couch, if said further was possible at all. She was not sure if the sound she heard was her own squeal or her heart beeping, but it was snapping all the same, knocking her back into the world and sense.

She pulled her palms up to look at them, distracting herself from her own embarrassment. She tried to breathe out well, as if that which was inside her was not air but fire, and breathing eased the burning raging from beneath her chest.

The fire fueled up again when the door bell thundered the small cave she had made for herself.

Yoohyeon was certain there were but a few who knew where she lived, and not all of which ever did visit her; it was only Minji - the thought had Yoohyeon detaching from all her trials to find her palms instead of her heart, for it was the mere name that turned all of her attempts to null.

It took her all of the strength she had left lying on her couch to look up from where she slept, but when the bell sounded again, assuring her that it was no game of her bewitched head, Yoohyeon went stumbling her way to the door. She tossed and ran and spilt all there was to dodge to find the entrance of her humble shelter; she, by no means, considered the mess that was made further of her place, for no mess was deeper than that she was in.

Yoohyeon breathed once her hand touched the knob, not knowing it would be her last.

She had expected an incomprehensible elation to fill her lungs once the door figured its way apart from its frame, but once Yoohyeon's eyes met the very familiar yet strange eyes that stood by her door, the fire multiplied, but it was taking with it all there was left of its host's hope.

Yoohyeon stared back at her mother, bewildered.

"Mom," she did her best containing her disappointment, keeping the remnants of her excitement that was yet to fade with the hastiness of its collapse to herself; Yoohyeon straightened her back, filling her lungs with the long-lost air before she clasped her hand on the knob.