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CHAPTER TWENTY ONE ( We'll Never Be Those Kids Again )
WHEN AHN SUHO turns eighteen, he sheds off him the thick coat of remorse and hatred in favor of applying on his brittle skin rejuvenated ointment. He is no longer bitter, no longer angry.
He is no longer seventeen, and he has ascended past the thick-headed stubbornness of his olden self and has learned that he is borne of nothing and will soon be nothing.
( A fighter is only worthy when his bones are strong, otherwise he is as useless as a hornless bull in the pen ).
He reaches out a hand — He is only as good as the limp in his step, and all he can let loose from his tongue is falsities to those he loves — Tries to intertwine the grooves and swirls of the hair of that which he calls his friend.
She turns, and Suho catches a glimpse of clay and sutures, surfacing a face that is neither hers nor anyone's. With the touch of his cursed hand, she withers away into the shadow of his mind.
Ahn Suho tears open his jaws in a guttural scream, but the void in which he is trapped in spirals the chords of his pleas into silence. The girl does not turn back to face him.
( He chose this path. Now he must walk it ).
THEY WALK SIDE by side. It has been so long since Ahn Suho could selfishly enjoy Cha Jaehwa's presence without anyone else around. If he closes his eyes and looks past his brittle bones, he can picture those days when she was still entirely his.
Those days are long gone, and he rues the boy he had once been, so angry, so blind to the damage he caused in his wake.
The midday light is still bright, filtering through Jaehwa's short hair. Suho basks in her glow, allowing their shoulders to bump and for their fingertips to brush against each other.
"Where are we going?" The boy asks, giddy in his excitement.
Jaehwa huffs out a small laugh. "It's a surprise."
Suho gently tangles their fingers together, feeling for the soft pulse of her wrists. He wishes he could be just a little more selfish, but he knows better.
( There is only so much he can take from someone with nothing left to give ).
Jaehwa allows the boy to cling to her, feeling that perhaps they had been this close in her past lifetime, once. It is Suho's birthday, who is Jaehwa to take away a feeble remaining dream away from him?
