CENTRE OF MAGIC. | CYJ

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mellow kitchen of a modern plot in London. Hanuel crouches down on the floor with her arms around her knees , resting her chin on her folded arms watching bread rise to perfection in the oven. she sighs at the fate of her mundane routine in the morning , the weather is pleasant between the warm sunlight and the quick light showers in the evening. her English husband has a strict alarm. he wakes up and heads to work at the same time each day , he gives little attention to Hanuel , his Korean wife. she mothers two children and exhaustion plagues her until she prepares them for school.

Haneul sighs again. she was a writer and she was exhasuted. she has managed to write loads as a maiden before moving to London with her husband , a little during her maternity and nothing at all in the past seven months.

Hanuel writes for a local newspaper that publishes for a global audience. she also writes occasionally to her mother who lives in Korea. Hanuel’s letters to her mother are in disguise about her own life in the form of short stories about the events she encounters as a foreigner , sometimes full of despair and weakness , sometimes about the neglected soliloquies fountained about her unfortunate marriage, about the discomfort of honing a voice but never using it.

Hanuel is a beautiful women. she has short hair just like her husband prefers, she wears elegant and neat long dresses both plain and floral.  she likes to flaunt burgundy lipstick  , a lighter eyeshadow to conceal her discountinous sleep , subtle eyeliner,perhaps a broach for mental stability and nutritious diluted orange juice for breakfast.

There was nothing Haneul hated more than being idle about her ideas. she hated the process of waiting till the evening when the burden of house chores subsided. By then , her husband and children returned. Haneul would end up exhausted to the bone until dinner and midnight finally infront of her reliable typewriter which would feel like a mountain climb without oxygen support , her quivering to get something on paper while her toddler of two needed milk.

Hanuel was so e x h a u s t e d.

Hanuel could die and still be exhausted. she would wake up and come back alive to work on her abandoned books. her soul housed in them , her stories carried a part of her personality and all her worth condensed in every word she put on paper, else dead on death bed sleeping like she was born to perish.

Hanuel wrote well. she would be praised but it would cost her to feel detached from her own identity. when she was sad , she wrote about it , when she was delighted , she wrote about when she felt neither , she felt confused about it. she rather felt numb , docile about extreme emotions and never wrote about them. she never talked about them with her husband , she never explained about them to her mother , she had friends but were always occupied , she could write but it was about her despair. It was about what her characters were not , the opposite of empowerment , an intense record of her desire to not exist.

Hanuel feels a pair of hands slip around her waist as she stands infront of the kitchen counter slicing baby tomatoes with a blunt knife. the knife cuts through the fragile fruit dully squeezing the juice out as she holds it still between her fingers.

“ Love ” , her husband , Kai whispers as he leans closer.

Haneul leaves the knife on the board to cater to his affection. she slides her damp tomato stained fingers on his cheek feeling him kiss her nape. she stands emotionless , almost as dull as the knife she holds. she feels her spine tingle with goosebumps as he turns her shoulder around to make her stand facing him.

“Hello , Love ” , he extends his hand towards her chin to lift her face.

Hanuel observes her tensed husband’s expressions. he wears  a black scarf to cover his forehead and hairline , a fashionable choice for a train engineer , soft but gentle gaze on his wife like the day he met her on his visit to Korea , high raised nose bridge , salmon pink thin lips lift for faint smile

“ did you miss me , darling? ”, he asks her as she wraps her hands around his neck, stepping closer to him. she and her husband were fifteen cm apart and she could cut down on if she stood on his feet.

“ miserably ”, replies Hanuel leaning forward to kiss him.

Kai smiles as he responds to the sweet peck and walks her to the dining table in the front of the kitchen counter where he guides her to sit.

“ You must eat ”, he tells her as he walks back to the kitchen counter , fumbles through a couple of even paired chopsticks in the rack and gathers an antique rice bowl from the inner rack. he holds the two and fills the bowl with a good amount of cooked rice from a traditional hotpot , he also finds a jar of fermented vegetables on the counter. he collects a spoonful on top of the rice and walks with it towards her.

“Here you go. eat , you look miserable ” , he remarks as he takes the nearest seat next to her . he doesnt leave her side as he softly places his hand on her back to comfort her as she takes the chopstick and bowl towards her.

“ when have I ever looked delightful? ” , she asks smiling sarcastically before taking a bite, in disbelief as she looks at her food.

“on the day we married. the day i met you, you looked eccentric , Love ” , Kai adds in defense as he watches her eat.

Hanuel doesnt speak after. she pauses for a moment taking one bite of her food , taking her own sweet time transferring the morsals between her right and left sides to balance chewing in boredom. staring at the standing clock pendulum swing on the opposite side of the room, she brings her chopstick up to her lips leaving her mouth ajar as she glides the chopsticks down her lips in gloom

“I don't know what I've given to writing , but writing has given me immense sadness, anguish and anger ”, she explains in a dull voice , her voice indicating her acceptence and the bitter resort to abstain from writing.

It pains him to watch Hanuel lose all hope in life. he knew how much writing mattered to her.

Kai needed to help his wife. 

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a/n : I personally don't like history. It hurts my gut but here we go since I'm equally detached from life like Hanuel.