It's an occasional thing. To be sad. To be in pain. To have her heart crushing into dust. And it's led by fate. Mina can't do anything about it. She's fightless when it's her against the world.
It's nothing short of bitter to smile with her friends on a bright day, laughing every now and then while her heart silently crumbles for a reason she can't name. It's an occasional thing.
Her lips curve down in a beat of time when she thinks she's all left alone, feeling relief take away the tension on her shoulder. She's been on it for a while—actually, it was since she arrived at their meet up place: the park. She didn't have the guts to turn down their offer when she's been doing it for months straight, so she figured out to put a facade instead.
Honestly, she doesn't know what's worse. If it's leaving her friends thinking she doesn't care about them as much as they do or if it's pretending to enjoy every bit of their company just to be present. She sighs. Her cheek is on the palm of her hand and it's heavy. Everything is heavy: her eyes, her head, her arms, her heart.
She feels like she's made out of cement.
The stiffness in her body comes back when a voice rings cold into her ears. The person's presence is warm and it makes Mina's hair stand.
"You're carrying out an odd vibe today." The statement is nothing unusual. Jihyo has always been blunt, and Mina isn't particularly fond of it. Especially at this moment.
With lips parted, Mina lets out a chuckle. It's sheepish. "N-no I'm not! You're just hungry!" Usually, Mina says more than that to make her pretentious act more believable. However, right now, she just has nothing more to say.
And it's nothing really enjoyable to be alone with Jihyo. Atleast, just at this moment. She's stubborn and straightforward, and Mina hates being honest about herself. Her words just never come out right. It stumbles one after another. Her thoughts rise, because it's easily triggered. She doesn't know where to start or what to talk about. It's hard to explain and she doesn't have the energy to do all this.
Mina just wants to be alone and be away from being needed to deal with people, and their questions, and expectations, and just everything. She just wanna make the world stop and just breathe. It's always so demanding and Mina doesn't really wanna go for it anymore.
"Can we not...you know...can we not talk about anything until they come back?" It sounds more of a plea, and Mina hates that. She despises being pathetic. "I just...I..."
"If that'll make you feel better, then okay." One thing about Jihyo, despite being usually stubborn and straightforward, is that she isn't annoyingly nosy. She just carries this intimidating vibe around her that pressures Mina to be honest.
If it's Sana who she's with right now, she'd be exhausted. The girl is always high and hyper, too caring at times and excessively curious. Still, she loves them nevertheless. When she wants to disregard herself the most, they hold her tighter. They're mostly the only reason why she fails to completely fall.
"Thank you." Mina mumbles, taking a moment before turning her head to Jihyo. "Do you think they noticed too?"
"Probably." She's looking straight ahead, resting her chin on the back of her hand. "Well, maybe some of them did, too, they just don't wanna bother you about it."
There's a short silence after that and Mina was just beginning to wonder why when Jihyo speaks again, "We're not really good with emotions and talking, you know?"
"Mmh, so pretending like we don't see anything is what we do, right?" Mina says and it makes her softly chuckle at her own statement. In the end, they're all being pretentious. Yet there she was, beating herself a little too deeply in the ground when they actually understood something.
Jihyo hums, "And string pulling a motion of facade like we're working on a puppet show."
They smile at that in silence, not looking at each other. But Mina is comfortable enough to place her head on Jihyo's shoulder and rest.
"Maybe, when we get older, we'd know better than pretend all the time." Mina says.
And Jihyo hopes so too.
