❛ The subtlety in your voice tells me you're no wolf, but a pup. I am no herder, whatsoever.❜
[🎰] 𝘿𝙀𝘼𝘿 𝙂𝙄𝙍𝙇𝙎 𝘿𝙊𝙉'𝙏 𝙎𝙉𝙄𝙏𝘾𝙃
"To know a game so deadly was for the unfortunate, and yet perhaps our lifeline...
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PRE-MASACRE────yooil high school, seoul, south korea
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"How would you describe yourself?"
Quite the unoriginal question, really, was what the young girl thought. She blinked and slumped back against the cushioned chair. She seemed to dwell on the question, looking for an answer that was yet to become true. Her face showed a hint of pensiveness in her furrowed eyebrows, the ominous feeling of wonder clogging up her chest like a practiced chant.
"Uhm I don't know: I'd say empathic, good-natured, humble—"In a well-rehearsed speech, the words rolled out of her mouth unsupervised.
"No, Hyori. How would you really describe yourself?"
The devil's favorite vessel. There was blood on her hands that only she could see. Her stare diverted from the other's eyes and downwards, watching as her fingers traced a slithering line on the soft material of the arm rest. She saw crimson on beige, a miscreation on mortality and it wasn't the ichor of the gods but perhaps one of half a deity.
"A double headed muse. A two faced coin. It's up to you to decide which suits me best." There was a soft, pitiful, smile on the girl's face and like a dealdly pest, the doctor found herself infected by it. They shared twin smiles, one thought they shared a feeling. The ambience within the room turned doomer, the warm toned lights held hands with Hyori's angel-like appereance in doing anything but helping the cause. She has tripped from heaven, which made her a fallen, and her halo now worked like a mere carcass of what she had been. Because a façade was just that; a disguise, and the Devil has been having way too much fun with it.
"You mentioned the word 'muse', are you into art?"
"Life's an unfinished canvas, is it not?"
There was a glint in the woman's eye as she sighed tiredly through her nose. It had been inaudible, but not discrete enough. She merely stared. "You like poetry, am I right?"
"Well, the world speaks in rhymes and I was born in it."
The clock on the wall she initially thought was simply for decoration ticked impatiently. "Do you always do that?"
Hyori hummed. "Do what, Dr. Kim?"
"Evade my questions," Spoke the older woman, a hint of impassivness woven within her voice, "Dance around my words, rephrase my sentences."
Do a better job, then. "I do not know what you mean, I always reply. You asked me if I liked art and I told you I did, Dr. Kim."
The pastel yellow walls would recoil at the awkwardness if they weren't rock solid; if only the woman were as tough."Let's talk about your condition," the older's fists tightened just before she spat out, a thing so sour coated in sugar. Knuckles nearly as white as the notebook's paper, she noticed. If she were to tighten them a bit more the pen would snap and the cardboard would dent. So unoriginal. Hyori smiled, the softness left aside this time, the pity nowhere to be seen. The doctor saw something funny in it.
"I don't think that's really professional of you, Dr. Kim."
The air turned irrevocably bitter and if the dark haired girl had to visualize it she'd see the petals of a flower wither into ashes with mere abuse, quite like a smoker's habit. She could always grab a mirror and cut her lungs open for a representation. The air tinted their breathing, as well as their pulse, ambience and the woman's posture. She cocked her head to the side: insulted and perplexed. "You need to tell me what's wrong with you."
Wrong wording, horrible wording really. Any person who's actually insane would jump her, good thing she's just a school psychologist. The girl glanced at the name tag on the other's chest; a good title gone to waste.
"Ms. Kim, you of all people should know just how stressful school life can be. You can only imagine how hard I've been trying to maintain high grades and deal with my classmates all at once." Hyori's usual smile was back, the tension in the doctor's shoulders eased.
The woman nodded, letting out a heavy breath as she stared at her notebook. ̶L̶̶i̶̶a̶̶r̶ no. Likes art, artistic individual -> sensible and touchable soul. Indecisive, ̶l̶̶o̶̶w̶ ̶s̶̶e̶̶l̶̶f̶ ̶e̶̶s̶̶t̶̶e̶̶e̶̶m̶ . M̶̶a̶̶n̶̶i̶̶p̶̶u̶̶l̶̶a̶̶t̶̶i̶̶v̶̶e̶ never mind. Stress, frustration. Understanding, people pleaser. Just below the list of words, she added another one.
Academic validation?
"So that's the reason why you're parents enrolled you with me," the doctor concluded. She still scribbled things down.
The girl watched silently. The corners of her lips flickered. She still smiled. The reason? You'll never know the reason. She sighed loudly, innocently, attracting the older's attention. Her eyes wandered everywhere in that petite room, gazing at the smallest details she has already looked at one too many times now. The small coffee table to the woman's left still had that coffee stain on it. The plant sitting on it seems to have withered the slightest bit; a visible response to having been exposed to student's pessimist thoughts for under half a year. The picture frames hung on her back were slightly crooked to the side. The bookshelf on the right stood prominently, yet the messy books and papers scattered in it made it a thing so shameful.
She redirected herself towards her front with a grin. "You're the best at this, aren't you? I'm sure you'll help me get through this year just fine."
"I'll do everything in my power to do so, yes." The grin appeared to be contagious.
And like a victory bell, an acute alarm went off. The greetings were always the same. It felt like acting out a memorized script; get in, deal with the questions, compliment the psychiatrist, end in a good note, leave. The cycle is neverending — like a broken record, like an ouroboros: a snake devouring it's own tail. The girl felt stuck in a loop of eternal distruction and rebirth. In the day's therapy session she'd die with a smile on her face; in a couple of days' time she'd be born with the same gesture and Doctor Kim will greet her like she always does.
As soon as the door was closed and she found herself in a long isolated hallway, her friendly expression was quick to fall. She huffed, bored. This whole situation is fucking unoriginal. It was with desperation the way she embraced the dull wall's quiet company in an atempt to shrug of the lingering hands trying to pull her back — to the good, to the golden, to the solution.
Too bad she has the soul of a sinner.
"I'm done, Ms. Kim calls for you."
Frankly, the boy had been too inmersed on his phone to realize Hyori had finished her yapping session with the psycologist and arrived to the waiting room, which made him flinch a bit. With a perched eyebrow, he raised his head to face the girl, his infamous smirk adorning his lips. Her annoyance grew further.
"What type of fucked up is little miss perfect to be sent here?" Go Kyunjun wondered, grinning as he stood up and towered over her, "Are your little secrets twisted? I hope they are, that way it'd be easier to make your life a living hell once discovered."
Her eyes shone as she looked up at him the same way an innocent soul would look up in wonder, but there was nothing innocent in that glint, "Aw, you think I'm perfect? I'm flattered, really, but I'd be more concerned about my own little problems if I were you." A sole glance downwards towards his bruised hand and the boy knew exactly what she meant. "I'm guessing some snitches got stitches."
He watched her observe his hand. "So you do have problems."
