𝑰 𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍|2YEON|ENG

Perfection

Some day in 2023

Her parents had separated in 2022, or maybe it had happened in 2021, she didn't remember it, yet the insensitive being continued to live with them. He had his own house but he still spent most of the day indoors and his presence had started to irritate Jeongyeon. But it was in that year that his father was finally kicked out of the house. Unfortunately, however, positive events are often generated by negative ones.

Let's start from the beginning of 2023: Jeongyeon had gone on a trip, where she had definitely fought with a friend of hers. By now there were many people she had grown fond of who were no longer in her life, especially her most important friendships. From then on, Jeongyeon was no longer able to define anyone as friend, she came to doubt the friendship of those three survivors who she had known for years; of course, except for Nayeon, because Nayeon was perfect, maybe too perfect, and perfection doesn't exist. By now she had understood one thing: people have the bad habit of replacing some instead of making room for others.

When she returned from the trip she was in a horrible state: she had a test two days later, she had just broken off an important friendship and she hadn't eaten for days. She was locked in her room crying, when she heard the unbearable scream of the words which made her react. She got dressed, took the phone, and left that house. She wandered for a long time, tried to convince herself not to, she walked again, no one knows where she went that evening, but eventually Ryujin found her just as she was about to go do the extreme act. The next day she couldn't study much. But what had happened? What had brought her to such a high state of depression? She was already suffering, but something had happened. Consider that she hadn't eaten for five days, that she had broken off an important friendship, that she was hurt inside and then... Then she discovered that her mother was having a relationship. She had every right to have it but... Her partner was the brother of one of her teachers. For Jeongyeon, this created a great sense of unease. And then... Not just any teacher, the one who hated her, who yelled at her because she was having a panic attack once. But no, Jeongyeon didn't receive any special treatment from that teacher, she simply started treating her like a human being.

Then, at Easter, there was an episode in which the man hit her hard on the head and that's where it all began. The police was called. But that wasn't the first time they intervened: a couple of years earlier he had called them for no reason, then the social workers arrived. And again... Carabiners and then social workers, and so also in 2024. From that episode, Mr. Yoo was removed from the Yoo house. Sometimes he would go and knock the doorbell at night and Jeongyeon would now tremble every time she heard the doorbell. And she punctually had a test when it happened, arriving in front of the teacher with a thousand questions, including: is it worth it? Sometimes, so demoralized, she didn't reply to her test, because she couldn't. And how could we forget when she didn't come home because a test hadn't gone the way she wanted? At least the first time she had warned that she would not return and they had gone to look for her.

But there was another thing Jeongyeon didn't know: Mr. Yoo was taking drugs, and he had done it in her house too, even in front of her. Just think that in 2024 they found him passed out on the ground after mixing alcohol and drugs. Jeongyeon was convinced that these things only happened in the books she read and the movies she saw. And yet that was reality, her reality.

Let's now move on to describe poor Mrs. Yoo, the one who seemed to be just a victim. She suddenly started spending nights out. Ryujin was disappointed, Jeongyeon now knew that no one cared about her. She had taken refuge in writing since 2020. If it hadn't been for the latter and for music, who knows where she would be now. Jeongyeon had happened to confront her mother and the latter had had the courage to tell her that she was envious of her, of her relationship. What healthy mother would say that? And there Jeongyeon realized that her hatred and disappointment towards Mr. Yoo had masked her feelings of contempt towards Mrs. (ex) Yoo. Now the lady rarely spent time at home, leaving her daughters to themselves. Sometimes it seemed like she didn't care about her children. On New Year's Eve she didn't spend the night with them either. After an initial period in which Jeongyeon had all the responsibilities, her grandmother went to live with her. Jeongyeon loved her but sometimes her presence was too much: her parents had to be with them, not her grandmother. Jeongyeon had to grow up at the age of fourteen, while her peers went out and went clubbing, and she had done it to protect her sister and to protect herself.

In case you were wondering, depression and eating disorders continued to be a part of her life, but we won't highlight them in the next chapters. Jeongyeon doesn't want anyone's pity.

And Nayeon... Her so perfect friend, I haven't talked about her. Maybe for a specific reason, maybe because Nayeon never existed.

Nayeon was perfect, maybe too perfect, and perfection doesn't exist.