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CHAPTER TWENTY TWO ( The Knowing Tears Me Apart )
BEING FRIENDS WITH Young-yi is unfortunately the same as trying to tame a raging storm, unwavering and chaotic. She weaves between the lines of truths and lies, always emerging with another witty response by the end of the conversation.
Fortunately, over the course of the days ( Or has it been weeks? Really, time flies ), Cha Jaehwa has grown an iron hide to her incessant teasing and her need for physical touch. The brushstroke of her mauled tongue becomes a soft whisper against Jaehwa's skin, and the conformity of friendship burrows into her bones.
( Eventually, she too settles in a corner of Jaehwa's heart, tugging close the blinds of the small and cramped space and refusing to leave ).
When she announces that Suho is to have a party room, no one has the heart to say no. Well, they try, but Young-yi is ferocious in her need to make herself useful now that she has taken residence with Suho's grandmother, and so they relent to her complaints. The feeling of being damaged goods, of having nothing to offer, is a feeling that Jaehwa would rather her friends not experience.
Jaehwa does her part in distracting the birthday boy with needlessly sappy birthday presents and heartfelt wishes. They spend the morning wrapped in their small world, leaving behind Si-eun and Young-yi to decorate a shell into a home.
The time dwindles in bursts of laughter and good-natured smiles, teenage youth and the flurry of sun before Spring's end, until it becomes the moment they knock upon the door, hands clasped and entwined in the others, cheeks flush with windswept kisses from the cold air.
Young-yi does not greet them, contrary to their expectations. Si-eun does, ushering them in kindly, motioning to the table laden with food and drinks with small movements. He has yet to completely shed the meek skin that cages him, but Jaehwa supposes growth cannot occur in the blink of an eye.
"You're back," He murmurs in that meek voice of his, eyes glimmering. Most of what he wishes to say, he swallows. Si-eun must carry essays of unsaid thoughts.
"Yeah." Suho replies, a bit of air stuck in his lungs. The rim of his waterline is stained red from his hasty wipes. In between his fingers sits the bag containing Jaehwa's gift, and he gently places it atop the table, as though afraid it will crumble to dust when removed from his grasp.
"Where's Young-yi?" Jaehwa asks as she slips off her coat, placing it on an empty chair.
The room is suffocating, lingering words left unsaid beginning to crawl up now that there is no one to subdue them. Jaehwa has tried forgetting about the ache in her bones — She really tries — but it's hard to place a bandaid on a broken bone, and it slowly begins to heal wrongly, bent and twisted against rotten flesh.
