These Lonely Nights (Hwang Hyunjin)

V. Things like this are made to destroy us.

"Oh, you owe me so much money."

I twist my head to glare at Jisung. "Ten bucks is what we agreed on. And I still think I wasn't completely wrong."

"The bet was whether or not they'd have installed those boujee bidet Japanese auto-toilets that sing songs when you come near, wasn't it?" Seungmin says.

"Yes, so we won't know for sure until we see it," I reply weakly.

"Jiyu, if they have stone lions and a jacuzzi, they have seat-warming toilets."

I mutter my defeat and look up at the house, drinking it all in. It's not unusual for students to live in flats off-campus; it just costs money, which we generally don't have. That is part of the reason why I've never visited one: most of the kids who live in them are inherited assholes who don't mix with people who attend school fairs to stock up on meals from the free buffet. Namely me.

Well, they say it's good to try new things.

The flat is secluded in the front, but I glimpse the back wall is made purely of glass, facing the trees. There are potted plants on the porch next to actual stone lions, and fucking hedges—because of course these people get hedges—and the whole thing is big enough to fit half of the dorm house I live in.

"I bet they drink puppy tears," Seungmin mutters under his breath.

I snort, looking at him incredulously. I should be used to it now. Most people assume Jisung is the snarky, uncalled-for-judginess in our friend group, out of all us three, because he's so loud. But the kind people aren't always the quiet ones. And Seungmin is maybe the most savage person I've ever known.

I'm glad for it, though, because in every other way, Seungmin is a good person. He sends his grandparents gifts every month and writes down everything he's grateful for in a journal and picks up trash on the side of the road when no one is looking. If he didn't have such a savage personality, he would be one of those people you hear about in hospital stories and neighbor newspapers, and I wouldn't be able to stand him.

I have this thing about good people, you see. Nice people I'm fine with. Sweet people and I get along great. But it's the good people—the heartfeeling, selfless just-wants-to-make-the-world-a-better-place people who are motivated by the endless droves of genuine kindness welling inside their chests—that I don't trust.

Maybe it's my fault that I don't believe people are inherently good, that perfect human beings don't exist. But if I know one thing, it's that kindness is learned.

Seungmin's dog saved his life when he was a kid—dragged him out of the swimming pool when his parents had forgotten to check on him. He volunteers at pet shelters four times a week.

After Jisung came out of the closet, his father refused to talk to him for the whole year up until he was sent to boarding school. He hates silence—talks as much as he can to avoid it, makes music when there's no one to talk to. Now he makes it to share with the world—to show his dad that if he won't be proud of his son, he'll be proud of himself.

And I ... I witnessed directly what alcohol could do to a person. Watched it consume my father piece by piece, taking all the angry and sad parts of him and making them wither and curdle like spoiled milk. Watched its residue eat at my mother until she spent every day standing in the same spot by the windowsill, staring rigidly down the driveway, waiting for my father to come back.

Now, I am someone who finds people suffering the same poison sitting in the hallway by my room, and I let them inside my door.

Kindness is our scars. Kindness is the still-bleeding wounds marring our flesh; kindness is the golden medal we have earned for making it this far. Kindness is the price we are paid for surviving the worst things that can be done to us. The promise of no one else will have to endure what you have endured.