Part III
reminiscences of a complicated cat
For the longest time, solitude was Hyunjung's favorite place.
She definitely knew how to appreciate a friend, how to be sociable and a pleasant presence - the lights surrounding her have always been way too bright for her taste, after all, and the buzzing of excessive interest directed to her had been one of the many things she had to resign to. But it was in the silence of her private world that she liked to be, it was in her alone hours that she had the most fun, and as much of a waste, or worrisome matter, as this could be in other people's eyes, she was fine with it.
And, truly, this had never changed.
She still loved doing things on her own. She still loved being alone with her oddness and it wasn't like the circumstances had taught her any other way to deal, surpass, and fix things and problems if not like this, on her own.
But there was only so far a child's innocence could go without anyone to protect it and to Hyunjung, growing up meant not just having herself destroyed and rebuilt a million times without a chance to cry for help in between, but also sacrificing the comfort of her lonely room to face all the noise, all the chaos she had never bothered sparing a glance to when ignorance tasted sweeter in her mouth than the coldness that scared her to death.
Because suddenly, her nights began to be spent at parties she couldn't care less about instead of in the safety of her beloved blankets.
Suddenly, things didn't make as much sense as they used to and the passing of the years no longer brought her peace.
Suddenly there were tears, loudness, madness, anxiousness-
Suddenly there was Jiyeon.
Her heartbreak, her blessing; the disaster Hyunjung had done everything in her power to prevent and the salvation she had long stopped believing she could ever get. And before she had the chance to step back and realize that she actually liked some of the mess her life had become, Hyunjung had to suffer the damage and the losses like a curse she couldn't break and take the bitterness that cracked her numbness until she could finally see and feel like a human instead of just a soul wandering without a map.
But that... That was just one of the many chapters where Hyunjung had lost the podium as the single main character of it all.
Because before Jiyeon was her ruin, she was an annoyance, and before she could be called "salvation", she was the reason for Hyunjung's sobs in the middle of the night and the culprit for all the hickeys Hyunjung desperately hid, all the marks she avoided acknowledging like she avoided missing deadlines, and all the feelings Hyunjung vowed to never succumb to if she had any consideration for herself since falling in love with a player was the stupidest thing she could ever do, especially when she was already in love with her best friend and said best friend had no idea of all the secrets she was keeping.
Sure enough, those were fading memories on the old pages of Hyunjung's diary by now - Jiyeon wasn't qualified to be the player the rumors tried to paint and Juyeon wasn't as detached as she could seem. And while looking back at it no longer made Hyunjung cry her heart out, this past of arguments followed by hot make-out sessions, as well as these days of unrelenting desire and hours awake dreaming of a place where she didn't have to settle for less than what she wanted, could certainly bring a tug of nostalgia when emotions spoke louder, and Hyunjung wasn't one to deny that the most reckless part of her missed it just tiny little bit.
