Paper cuts & Paper rings | JayWon

33. Something worth fighting for

Hair feels so soft. Maybe especially in this moment since Jungwon can seemingly only find solace in the slow action of running his fingers through his hair. It hides him even for a moment but still, he can't breathe, for him to be able to do that he would have to be invisible.

Jungwon has never really liked school and he's never really liked many of the people in it but now it's hellish beyond words. He always felt inferior but now they weren't just tricks in his mind – they were real. Their words, stares, slurs everything made him want to break down and cry, but he doesn't.

Even when he's locked away in a bathroom stall he doesn't let himself cry. He can't be weak—he must be strong. So instead he smiles and pulls at his cheeks, slapping the reddened skin and digging his fingers into his hair until the pain is no longer evident on his face.

He slowly starts to wonder whether they are true, but those thoughts quickly dissolve when his heart burns and yearns for Jay. His smile, his kisses, his touch all of it – he craved it so badly.

That was love. That was real love, and no one was going to say otherwise to him because they hadn't experienced what Jay had given to him. He couldn't let that die – not for the world.

"Sodomite, pussy, fag—" Someone spits at him when he accidentally steps on his foot. The older boy shoves his side out of the way as his friends beside him attempt to hold their sniggers to themselves but it's far too obvious.

Jungwon tries his hardest to ignore them – he just needs to get home. Today is the last day before he gets sent to his parents' conversion therapy camps and he just wants to forget all the hate.

He wants to tell his friends his last goodbyes.

He wants to kiss Jay once more in case he'll never be able to feel his touch again.

Once he gets home, he quickly heads for his room. He wonders if his sister already knows about the situation or if his parents would keep it a secret from her. He looks around dazed in his room, fingers burning and making their last marks on his room before this becomes a wasteland of what he once was.

The silence finally allows his thoughts to run wild and so the loose threads display themselves in a flurry of conflict and compressed guilt.

Conversion therapy. Jungwon purses his lips tightly and closes his eyes until the thought disappears, but it doesn't the words twist and engrain themselves onto his head. His heart begins to race, and his veins expand with the fresh rush of blood that pools in.

It can't be that bad right – his parents own the place. He remembers going to it once, some take you, kid, to work type of deal, and it seemed big -- really big. It was white and very plain. He can't remember who he saw there but there were many different people – different compartments depending on what you did.

But unlike crimes and addiction, homosexuality isn't a curable disease. He knows that because who you like isn't an infection or an illness – if it really was a choice he thought to himself why in the world would anyone choose to be gay? If Jungwon knew that it was a choice he would picked to be straight but no, it's just who he is and he's accepted that now.

Though it's only the thought of leaving his friends and family forever that scares him but also the fact that he's been living his entire life a lie. What or who else does his parents keep in that business of theirs? His stomach twists and his solemn sadness suddenly burns into an uncountable rage, his nails digging into his scalp rather than his fingers simply clinging to his hair.

He finds this whole situation absurd and wrong. A shiver runs down his spine when he remembers calling Jay one of the slurs he can't escape from. It's all so absurd. When did his life become such hell and why does it feel like this is the end?