Lucifer : Tainted | Woosan

24: "Promise" (Wooyoung)

"The world was on fire and no one could save me but you..."
"Wicked Games"- Chris Isaak

November 2, 2020

Wooyoung POV:

(T/W: Mentions of self-harm)

Time.

Time is such a strange concept.

Time can fly; pass you by before you even have the chance to utter a single word in protest, to take a single step.

Time can also crawl, and when it does, it crawls at the slowest pace it can muster, almost as if taunting its victim with its chilling cruelty.

And somehow, sometimes, it just floats. Neither fast not slow, or maybe both at the same time. Perhaps both is the correct answer, for it is time that passes by incredibly slowly, yet you do not realize it- life has suddenly begun writing a certain page in its book so quickly that you seem to be caught in its whirlwind for but a few moments. It is only after the whirlwind ends that you realize it took up no more than just one page- one page, that's it.

But oh, how magical that page is- a single page changing the trajectory of the whole book; the page some may avoid but one that you keep coming back to time and time again, despite its contents.

The past week- the last three days in particular- have gone down in my book as one of those pages. Those three days felt like no less than an entire year.

Who knew so much could go down in such a short period of time? Meeting new people, the new church, the hour in the Backrooms that has haunted me every hour since, The Fight That Got San Expelled.

San.

He takes up a lot of space in my mind lately, and especially today. His eyes, his freckles, his body, his brain, heck even the stupid way his hair never stays put- everything about him makes me curious, makes me want to know him more, better.

I thought about him on the drive home from church, as I cleaned the house, in the shower. When I woke up, as I got ready for school, as I ate breakfast. I thought about him for hours into last night, only finally managing to fall asleep at the wee hours of dawn- and not without images of pretty lips, sparkling eyes, and soft skin still floating hazily through my memory.

And I think about him now, as my eyes feast on the idyllic red and gold hues of autumn out the bus window, as if screaming to defy the desolate grey of the sky looking down on them from above.

There will be no more of him at school. Where will he go? How different will it be? In the short time that I'd attended school, I'd started to associate it with him without realizing it. What will school be for me now that Choi San is gone?

Of course, the people will Talk About It- they will talk, talk, talk until they make sure his back is breaking under the weight of their words even when he can't hear them. But is that possible really? San doesn't let words break any part of him. Or at least that's what he makes it look like.

The bus screeches to a halt beside my stop and I rush out the doors with dozens of other students, getting caught in the tembre of their youthful laughing voices as we all head towards the school together.

The question that persists the strongest is- why does the thought of people talking suddenly disturb me as much as it does?

I'd always been of them- enjoying the gossip, all the endless variations and theories of it, and every juicy little crumb available on the mistakes and transgressions of the victim of these conversations. But now, when the victim of these conversations happens to be San, the thought makes me sick to my stomach.
Memories of myself laughing and whispering and pointing fingers each time I had the chance come to mind, making me want to wash my mouth out with soap for every word.